Consequences of gender discrimination
Badiul Alam Majumdar
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=5935

Gender discrimination is all pervasive. Beginning from the dawn of civilisation, it has been continuing over centuries. Although it shows up in different forms and manifestations in different cultures, it exists in every society. It encompasses every segment of the society, irrespective of economic condition and social standing. Discrimination exists throughout the entire lifecycle of women, beginning from conception to death, and it has ominous consequences.
Feticide and infanticide

Gender discrimination begins early, even before the birth of a girl child. Modern diagnostic tools make it possible to determine a child's sex in the earliest phase. In many societies, these techniques are often misused for female feticide. Although there is no conclusive evidence to confirm it, birth histories and census data reveal an unusually high proportion of male births and male children under-five in China and India, indicating sex-selective feticide and infanticide in the world's two most populous countries, despite commitments to eradicate these practices in both countries. Fortunately, these are not serious problems in Bangladesh.

The early years

A principal priority for the early years of childhood and adolescence is ensuring access to, and completion of, quality primary and secondary education. With some exceptions, it is mostly girls who are deprived of educational opportunities.

Primary education: For every 100 boys out of school worldwide, there are 115 girls in the same situation. Though the gender gap has been increasingly closing over the decades, nearly 1 out of every 5 girls who enrolls in primary school in developing countries does not complete the primary education. Lack of primary education deprives a girl of the opportunity to develop to her fullest potential. Studies have shown that educated women are less likely to die in childbirth and are more likely to send their children to school. Evidence indicates that under-five mortality rate falls by about half for mothers with primary school education.

Secondary education: Recent Unicef estimates show that, on an average, 43 percent of girls of the appropriate age in the developing countries attend secondary school. There are many reasons for this low attendance rate. Because of greater emphasis on universal primary education, many developing countries have neglected to allocate adequate resources to increase enrolment and attendance in secondary education. Childhood marriage is another reason. Parental inability to meet educational expenses due to poverty is also a reason.

Secondary education has many benefits. It is most effective in delaying the age at which a young woman first gives birth, and it can enhance freedom of movement and maternal health. It strengthens women's socioeconomic and political participation, and also enhances their status both in the family and in the larger society.

Adolescence

Among the greatest threats to adolescent development are abuse, exploitation and violence, and the lack of vital knowledge about sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS.

Child marriage and premature parenthood: Globally, 36 percent of women aged 20-24 were married or in union before they reached their 18th birthday, and most such marriages take place in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. This problem is serious in Bangladesh. Parents often consent to child marriages out of economic necessity, or because they believe that marriage will protect girls from sexual assault.

Premature pregnancy and motherhood are inevitable consequences of child marriage. An estimated 14 million adolescents between 15-19 give birth each year. Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in their twenties. If a mother is under 18, her baby's chance of dying in the first year is 60 percent higher than that of a baby born to a mother who is older than 19. Even if the child survives, he/she is more likely to suffer from low birth weight, under nutrition, and late physical and cognitive development.

Sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking: The younger girls are when they first have sex, the more likely it is that intercourse has been imposed on them. According to a World Health Organisation study, 150 million girls and 73 million boys under the age of 18 experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of physical and sexual violence in some countries during 2002.
An estimated 1.8 million children are involved in commercial sex work. Many are forced into it, either by being sold into sexual slavery by desperately poor families or being abducted and trafficked into brothels or other exploitative environments. Children exploited in the commercial sex industry are subjected to neglect, sexual violence, and physical and psychological abuse. In Bangladesh, sexual exploitation and trafficking are serious problems. For example, every year, an estimated 20,000 women and children are trafficked from Bangladesh. During the last 30 years, more than a million women have been trafficked to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.

Sexual and reproductive health: Because unprotected sex carries the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, knowledge of sexual and reproductive health is essential for the safety of young people. Although information alone cannot provide protection, it is certainly a first step. Nonetheless, adolescents around the world continue to have limited knowledge of reproductive health issues and the risks they face.

HIV/Aids: By 2005, nearly half of the 39 million people with HIV were women. In parts of Africa and the Caribbean, young women (aged 15-24) are up to six times more likely to be infected than young men their age. One reason is physiological -- women are more than twice as likely as men to become infected with HIV during sex. The other crucial factor is social -- gender discrimination in patriarchic societies denies women the right to say "no" to men's demands for sex. Promiscuous behaviour of men is also a factor. High rates of illiteracy among women prevent them from knowing about the risks of HIV infection and possible protection strategies. A survey of 24 sub-Saharan countries reveals that more than two-thirds of young women lack clear knowledge of HIV transmission. Even though it is not yet a serious problem in Bangladesh, we face potentially serious risks because of high rate of HIV/AIDS in neighbouring India.
The dramatic rise in infection among women increases the risks for children. Infants become infected through their mothers during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. In 2005, more than 2 million children aged 14 years or younger were living with HIV.

Motherhood and old age

Two critical periods in many women's lives, when the pernicious effects of both poverty and inequality can combine, are motherhood and old age.

Maternal mortality: It is estimated that each year more than half a million women -- roughly one woman every minute -- die as a result of pregnancy related complications and childbirth. About 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, with over 90 percent of those in Africa and Asia. Two-thirds of maternal deaths in 2000 occurred in 13 of the world's poorest countries. The same year, India alone accounted for one-quarter of all maternal deaths. In Bangladesh, maternal mortality is 360 per 100,000. One out of every 16 sub-Saharan African women dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, compared to just 1 out of every 4,000 in industrialised countries. Moreover, motherless newborns are between 3 to 10 times more likely to die than newborns whose mothers are alive. Many of these women's lives could be saved with access to basic health care services, including skilled birth attendants, and emergency obstetrics care.

Women in old age: Elderly women often face double discrimination because of both gender and age. Women tend to live longer than men, and they generally lack control of family resources and face discrimination from inheritance laws. Many older women are forced into poverty at a stage of life when they are most vulnerable. Only a few developing countries have safety nets for older people in the form of non-contributory or means-tested pensions. Bangladesh also has no such scheme.

Grandmothers in particular possess a great deal of knowledge and experience related to all aspects of maternal and child care. They are often a mainstay of child care for working parents. Experience has shown that children's rights are advanced when programs initiated to benefit children and families also include elderly women.

It is clear that women face discrimination from the period of being conceived until death. Women of all ages have to pay for such inequalities, often with their lives. The consequences of the prejudice are very serious for an economically backward country like Bangladesh. For example, the endemic malnutrition that prevails in the society due to deprivation of women saps the productivity of the population, creating serious obstacles for the progress of the nation. To overcome such obstacles, discrimination against women throughout the lifecycle must be ended, and opportunities created for them. This will, in turn, require ending of patriarchy, and the National Girl Child Day is celebrated every year on September 30 to create awareness about it.

Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar is President, The Girl Child Advocacy Forum. This article is based on The State of the World's Children 2007.

Drug-haul cover-up?
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2007/09/1223

The Narcotics Control Bureau is sitting tight on an important investigation even as illegal drug use in the country shows an upward trend
Akash Bisht Delhi

On the day when the BJP leader Pramod Mahajan was shot dead by his brother, another news item was jostling for the headlines. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) seized 200 kgs of cocaine, worth Rs 500 crore, tucked inside a container that had come from Hong Kong to the Jawahar Lal Nehru Port, Mumbai. While the Mahajan saga continued to occupy prime space on television and in newspapers, the record drug haul story mysteriously disappeared.

More than ten months later, this drug haul is being discussed in hushed tones in political and enforcement circles. Suggestions of shady Indian companies pulling strings to rescue the cocaine from the maalkhana (police storehouse) are going around. There are even rumours that crooks are replacing the cocaine with talcum powder.

Even though this allegation may be far-fetched, the truth is that the enforcement agencies have not really tried to get to the bottom of the cocaine haul. There is no clarity as to who sent it and for whom. The NCB claims that the ship, after leaving Ecuador, stopped at Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong ports, before reaching Mumbai. Although sources say the drugs were eventually headed for Spain, the NCB has refused to comment on their likely destination. According to an NCB official, "No investigation was done after the seizure. No official was sent to Ecuador to find out about the people involved in this. Since the consignment was not meant for India, not much investigation was needed." But no answers are forthcoming to the disturbing question about why this sensational seizure is being hushed up.

It took the NCB 15 years to zero in on Kanoui Julian, a French national who is a notorious drug supplier and has been on the most wanted list for a long time. Julian was finally caught by the NCB in New Delhi earlier this month. Documents pertaining to a container that was sent to Belgium were recovered from his possession. Julian, in his statement made during interrogation, also revealed that he has been shipping more than five containers of hashish worth crores of rupees, every year, from India to various European destinations.

In spite of these dramatic disclosures, NCB officials insist that India is no longer a transit point for drug traffickers, because of the fencing of the LoC between India and Pakistan. "The drug trafficking in Asia has been taken over by Albanians and now most of the drugs from Afghanistan are first sent to Albania and then to Russia, from where they enter Europe," said Shankar Rao, head of the Delhi zone of the NCB.

If the NCB is to be believed, most of the drug cartels operating in India have already been busted and only small time peddlers remain. Officials from the agency say the north-eastern states are witnessing a downward trend in heroin abuse, mainly due to the AIDS scare and the traumatic withdrawal symptoms experienced by addicts deprived of the drug.

However, there is an upward trend in the consumption of pharmaceutical drugs, especially cough syrups, in the same region. Cities like Ludhiana and Chandigarh and the countryside in Punjab are also witnessing massive cocaine abuse while Goa and Mumbai continue to show a high degree of party drugs consumption. Cocaine, ecstasy and vile are the drugs of choice for high-profile celebrities — especially those from the fashion fraternity. "Mumbai and Goa are famous for rave parties where a lot of these so-called party drugs are used. These posh parties are held secretly and it is difficult to know about their whereabouts. A lot of teenagers from influential families have started to experiment with these drugs and their numbers are growing," emphasised Rao.

However, the NCB’s claims of busting drug cartels and decreased drug use in India are not being treated seriously by the US government’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The DEA has reservations about the Indian government’s drug enforcement programme and the continuing export of poppy and its derivatives from licit areas of cultivation. Even reports from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare suggest that the problem of drug addiction in the country is very serious.

No hatred so common
By Russell Working
September 30, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-antisemitism_thinksep30,0,2533445,full.story

Imagine you're walking down Michigan Avenue when a madman in soiled pajamas and a tinfoil Viking hat strides up. He hands you a photocopied cartoon of an ogre with a Star of David on his chest. The creature is devouring a baby. You speed up. So does your new friend. He mutters: Hey buster, listen up. See, it's all their fault. These wars? They're to blame. The Holocaust? They bought it on. The bake the blood of children into matzos. They use "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, Lions Clubs and AIDS to dominate the world. You know who I mean: The Jews.

So how to deal with this fellow? A) Secure him a professorship at a leading university. B) Hire him to produce a television series. C) Appoint him to a position of power and allow him to deliver policy speeches to UN agencies. D) All of the above.

If you answered "D," you are on to something. Or so one is tempted to conclude when considering the resurgence of the ancient madness known as anti-Semitism.

In its scope, anti-Semitism is rare among Earth's infinite hatreds. Hutus exterminated Tutsis in Rwanda, Christians are targeted in China and Iraq, and Muslims see persecution in many lands, from India to France to the U.S. Discrimination is a daily fact of American life, not just for blacks but for Asians, Latinos and Native Americans.

But few hatreds unite such a vast range of establishment voices worldwide. The perfidy of the Jews is espoused by Syrian authors, Lebanese TV anchors, Italian cartoonists, Egyptian newsmen and heads of state from Malaysia to the Mediterranean. And it is coming home to roost once again in Europe.

Matthias Kuentzel, a German scholar who has traced the influence of Adolf Hitler in the Muslim world, says Judeophobia is at its worst level since the Nazi era. The Middle East conflicts fuel anger at Israel, but this is more than just frustrated people blowing off steam.

It is a demonology that encompasses all Jews, wherever they live or whatever their stand on Israel. It is an "infrastructure of the soul" for those who embrace it, Kuentzel says.

Consider: The madman's tirade above was based on real sources:

Editorial cartoons across the Middle East and Europe portray Israelis as ogres who devour babies, drawing on medieval and Nazi imagery.

The Irish News—following the lead of many other media—published a cartoon last year depicting an Orthodox Jew controlling Pentagon policy.

A store on Devon Avenue in Chicago sells books by a Turkish author who argues that Zionist leaders cooperated with the Nazis in organizing the Holocaust against their own people.

In 2003, a Lebanese television series dramatized Jews kidnapping and murdering Christian children and draining their blood to make matzos. In a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a rabbi munches the unleavened bread and observes, "This one is tastier and holier because it was kneaded with pure blood, the blood of Joseph." Similar claims routinely circulate in the Islamic world.

The Hamas charter blames Jews for evils dating to the French Revolution. The document also may be history's first revolutionary manifesto that lists, as a cause for war, an imaginary plot by Jews to control the world through Lions and Rotary clubs.

Egyptian and Jordanian newspapers have reported that Jews were selling drug-laced gum. Other accounts blame the spread of AIDS on Jewish doctors purposely infecting children with HIV.

A cultural adviser to the Iranian Education Ministry went on state television last year to explain that "Tom and Jerry" was part of a Jewish plot to improve the image of rodents, because Jews are, after all, regarded as "dirty mice."

It's not just the Islamic world in which bigotry threatens. The Community Security Trust, a British group that helps Jewish organizations set up security, tracked 412 attacks on Jewish targets outside Israel in the 25 years following 1968.

Stores were bombed in Paris; Lima, Peru; and Melbourne, Australia. In 2003, bombs at two synagogues in Istanbul killed 25 and wounded more than 300. A bomb outside a kindergarten in Vienna in 1982 failed to go off. It takes a certain level of indoctrination to conclude that 5-year-olds pose a danger so grave they must be eradicated with TNT.

The United States tends to be a safe part of the world for Jews, but it takes only one nut to endanger others. Last year a gunman offered his contribution toward the liberation of Palestine by forcing his way inside a Seattle Jewish center with a gun in the back of a 14-year-old girl. He then wounded five women and shot another dead, police said.

The man has pleaded insanity. How that distinguishes him from other anti-Semites is another issue.

(A word here on terminology: Arabs often say that because they are Semitic peoples, it is absurd to call an Arab "anti-Semitic." But the term traditionally has been defined as an animus toward the Jewish people, and that is how it is used here.)

Some people, including many Jews, who decry anti-Semitism as very real and extremely ugly trace its worsening to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. It can be a tricky topic, holding Israel accountable for its actions toward Palestinians without condoning anti-Semitism.

"You don't want to say it's Jews' fault that there are anti-Semites," said Jesse Bacon of Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago. "But it's more a question of what could we concretely do in keeping with our own values to lessen this problem. And I would suggest that would be reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

In Britain last year, attacks on Jews and other anti-Semitic incidents reached their worst level on record, according to the Community Security Trust. A parliamentary report last fall concluded that anti-Semitism is going mainstream in the United Kingdom, and that "has contributed to an atmosphere where Jews have become more anxious and more vulnerable to abuse and attack than at any other time for a generation or longer."

Studies in the European Union and Russia have drawn similar conclusions.

Among the British victims was Jasmine Kranat, a north London Jewish girl who went with a friend to buy fruit and yogurt to make smoothies for a sleepover last summer. On the bus home, a group of Asian and black teenage girls boarded the bus.

"One girl asked me, 'Are you English or Jewish?' " said Jasmine, who was 12 at the time, in a phone interview.

She answered, "I'm English," but the girls attacked her. Ignoring her friend, who was wearing a crucifix, the teens beat and stomped Jasmine, fracturing her eye socket and knocking her out. Jasmine's friend dragged her off the bus, and Jasmine was hospitalized.

The turning point in the resurgence of anti-Semitism was a UN-sponsored anti-racism conference in South Africa in 2001, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based group that battles bigotry worldwide.

That week, Iranians stormed a Wiesenthal news conference and turned over tables. Thousands of Muslim trade unionists demonstrated against Israel, some waving signs that read "Hitler was right." Police said they couldn't guarantee Cooper's safety if he left his hotel. And delegates voted to strike a condemnation of anti-Semitism from the conference's final statement.

As Cooper and about 30 other Jewish delegates walked out, some 3,000 people purportedly committed to battling racism worldwide hooted and jeered.

"The script for what it is we are struggling against was consecrated at that conference," Cooper says.

Last month, planning began on a follow-up gathering to the 2001 anti-racism conference in Durban. Jewish groups are already bracing for Durban II in 2009, fearing it will bring more anti-Semitic bashing of Israel.

An inventory of recent oral and written attacks on Jews by people of power and stature is as long as it is appalling.

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, beseeched Allah to annihilate the Jews, reported the Middle East Media Research Institute. After all, he said, they are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs." Imagine the riots if Pope Benedict XVI spoke this way about Muslims.

In April, the acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council prayed this about Jews and Americans: "Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one."

Surveying the intra-Palestinian fighting in Gaza, Egyptian liberal author Kamal Gabriel recently wrote that the battle with Israel had transformed from hatred of Zionism to a loathing of all Jews. And that "culture and psychology of violence," once unleashed, threatens Palestinians too.

"It starts with the Zionist enemy who is occupying the Holy Land, and then the violence and the hatred spread dangerously, like fire, in the psyche of the one over which [the violence and hatred] have gained mastery," Gabriel wrote. These destructive tendencies "consume everything around them—and the first thing they consume is the light of reason."

Try telling that to the guy in the tinfoil hat.
rworking@tribune.com

Indian Poet Named Ambassador for Good Will World Peace Treaty
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/9/prweb557158.htm
Poet and three-time world record holder Nikhil Parekh is now elected as Good Will Ambassador for the Good Will World Peace Treaty.

Ahmedabad, Gujarat (PRWEB) September 29, 2007 -- Nikhil Parekh, a 30 yr old poet from India has been elected Ambassador for the Good Will World Peace Treaty. This treaty, a brainchild of Celebrity Consultant and Inspirational Author Bryant McGill is aimed at spreading peace, good will, compassion and a sense of humanitarian understanding amidst all across the planet. Creator McGill, who'd earlier been featured for his numerous poetic and humanitarian achievements on the front page of Wall Street Journal, passionately says this about his treaty, "The Treaty gives you a path of action, that if followed, will make a difference. Our intention is to have all people sign this treaty. It is further, our intention to have all people in positions of power and influence sign this treaty by hand. Every city mayor, governor, celebrity, entertainer, TV personality, major corporate director, activist, foreign dignitary, senator, congressman, and ultimately, all world leaders. Don't be the weak link, declare your intentions with us now, and be the difference!".

Parekh, now the Indian Ambassador for the treaty, revealed that he would be putting devoted number of hours each day to spread the treaty and get as many people as possible to sign the same. His efforts via the Internet would reach countless World Leaders, Organizations, Individuals, Forums, Groups, Blogs, News Channels and virtually every legitimately conceivable juncture to spread the treaty and apprize the whole world about signing it. Parekh already has 3 world records with India's number one Limca Book of Records for --'Writing most number of letters to and receiving most number of replies from World Leaders and World Organizations'-- 'Being 1st Indian to win an EPPIE Award for best poetry ebook'-- 'Being 1st Indian to be published in Commonwealth Newsletter for his poem on AIDS'. He now plans to set a new record in approaching the maximum number of people on earth and to have them sign the Good Will World Peace Treaty. This is one record he says he'd cherish the most as it aims at the dissemination of world peace; love and goodness. Ambassador Nikhil Parekh can be visited at nikhilparekh.com or authorsden.com/nikhilparekh for thousands of his poems, world records, various works, achievements and books.

The Good Will Treaty for World Peace can be signed electronically as well as can be downloaded to sign by hand and emailed back to the organization, from its website goodwilltreaty.org.
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Daughter, Twin, Author
Jenna Bush makes the case for safe sex in her new book about an HIV-positive mother in Latin America.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21047653/site/newsweek/

By Lorraine Ali
Newsweek
Oct. 8, 2007 issue - Ana and Jenna don't have much in common. Ana's father was a poor South American cabdriver who died before she hit puberty. Jenna's dad became the 43rd president of the United States the year she started college. But the two lives converged in 2006 when Jenna, a 25-year-old UNICEF intern, and Ana, a 17-year-old single mother with HIV, met during an AIDS workshop in Latin America. Out of that union came "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope," a book by Bush for young teens that aims to raise awareness about poverty, AIDS and child abuse in developing countries. "In the U.S., we don't pay as much attention to these things, that people all over the world are living with these problems," says Bush. "The more you travel and talk to those affected by HIV, the more you know. But I'm still learning a lot, for sure."