The new abused woman profile: young, foreign, villager and married

The Spanish Centre against Domestic Violence has provided an analysis of gender violence deaths occurred in 2009 in Spain. In that year, there were committed 55 murders of women and 10 of men. The most repeated profile is that of a young woman, foreign, married and living in a small town. This requires more resources to be given to the populations under 5,500 inhabitants, where this type of crime continues to increase.

In most cases there was or had been a marriage, and in seven out of ten, the murder was committed in the marital home. In addition, more than one third of these cases, death was caused by a knife. According to a report of the Queen Sofia Center for the Study of Violence, the analysis of these deaths shows that there are a number of pathological behaviors that are repeated: abusers generally kill their victims at dawn in their own home.

The crime takes place more often in holiday periods or Monday, and once initiated the attack, the perpetrators often get carried away by anger. In fact, 50% of the 630 women who have died this way in the last decade were stabbed repeatedly and 12% were beaten to death. 13% of the murderers chose to shoot their victims. This report also indicates that the number of murders in the countryside grew by 130% in 2009 over the previous year.

In addition, Miguel Lorente, the government Delegate for Gender Violence of the Spanish Ministry of Equality, explained that there has been an increasing number of suicides among the murderers, which shows that they are increasingly aware of the social rejection that will suffer. Lorente has also held that the Government is considering publishing the names of offenders to feel rejected, and this way try to begin to reduce the number of victims.

The Ministry of Equal invites women to use the GPS in which the Government has invested, so that the abuser will not get within a certain distance. If he comes near, the device emits a signal that alerts the police to avoid any threat or aggression.

China expects 10,000 people to be forcibly neutered during the month of April

The Chinese Government allowed the castration of 9559 people in the town of Puning (Province of Guangdong, southeast China). This action against human rights is taking place from April 7 until next Monday. It aims to achieve the objectives of the birth control law in China's family planning policy.

The requirement to participate in this castration is to have at least one child. This is what Amnesty International has reported,which also said that some of them are castrated against their will. On 12 April, the Chinese authorities in the area said they had already reached 50%, because the medical team created for this purpose is working from eight in the morning until four in the morning of the next day .

Roseann Rife, deputy director of Amnesty International in Asia and Oceania, said that "forced sterilizations carried out by officials are a torture, and the rush of the procedure raises questions about its safety and possible health impacts in the future." This organization also reported that Puning authorities have detained 1,377 families of the couples selected to force them to undergo the operation.

Thus, about 100 people were detained on 10 April in Puning. Among them was the father of Ruifeng Huang, 64. "A few days ago, a village official called me and told me that if I did not return for the operation, they would take my father away", says Huang, who does not want an operation because he and his wife want to have a boy, but already has three daughters.

These arrests are contrary to the Law on Population and Family Planning adopted in September 2002, which in addition to make legal the forced castrations prohibits kidnaps of the family to make couples undergo it. Its aim is that urban couples can only have a child, and if the firstborn is a girl can have another child.

Oxfam International’s "Day of Hope" urges Zapatero to provide measures against poverty

It is April 25, 2010 in Reina Sofia Museum Square (Madrid), which hosts the 16th edition of “A Day for Hope", the day that the NGO Oxfam focuses on the actions of social mobilization and awareness. A very light green, the color of the organization, fills the square to press Zapatero to fulfill his promise to end poverty in the world.

With the slogan of "Thank you José Luis, because you will do it, won’t you?" and a nice caricature of the President, several members of the NGO collect signatures. The objective is designed to take the Presidency of Spain in the European Union to urge the UN to effectively meet the so-called Millennium Development Goals. Intermón, along with another NGOs, stresses that it would be effective to achieve the desired measures such as 0.7%, the eradication of hunger and ensure access to health and education for everyone.

It is 13:32 and, according to data which shows a manual scoreboard operated by volunteers, 300 people have already signed up for the cause. To all these signatures must be added the ones that are made by Intermón web.

It is estimated that there are currently 1.4 billion people surviving on less than one euro a day, and that 70% of them are women. In addition, every minute 100 people descend to the level of poverty. Gloria Bigné, director of Oxfam in Madrid, raised on behalf of the organization a challenge in solidarity: "we can change this data if 100 other people accept help to stop it."

Stands that have been in this place today join both children and adults on several objectives: a sample of the work of the NGOs, social awareness projects, recruitment of members and volunteers, and a broad set of fair trade products, which is bringing predominantly female audience. Children can also make masks of colors, drawings of solidarity and they can also play that they give products to Ecuadorian farmers in some workshops where they explain the real problems with activities that suit their age.

In the "Day of Hope” this year, Intermón leads us to understand the situation of farm households from Cayambe (Ecuador). A cow and a cardboard box with some food that is normally available in the Spanish market illustrate the current problem of the South American region. As explained by the volunteer Ana Roca, "the irrigated lands are owned by factories and businesses, and small farmers are forced to work in fields where they grow crops without irrigation. The problem is that in these lands are less harvested products that are sold in low prices”. Therefore, this NGO works to ensure the construction of irrigation tanks and the installation of irrigation systems.

"A day for hope" is a party, so there is also a bar, a good way to relief the 26 degrees registered after noon. There is also a stage where artists are singing, as DePedro, founder of Vacazul and collaborator of groups like Amparanoia, and other groups of dancers of capoeira and batuka.

"Change your life, not climate”

Today at 12 AM was the date chosen by the Citizens' Platform for Climate Change to celebrate in the streets of Madrid the 40th World Earth Day, which was on Thursday 22. This platform, which brings together environmental organizations, neighborhood groups, trade unions, citizens' and political organizations, protests today against climate change between Jacinto Benavente Square and Reina Sofia Museum.

Under a scorching sun that reminds to the images that the NASA (see video below) has offered in commemoration of Earth Day, thousands of protesters stirred up the street with their slogans and colored banners. With music everywhere, various associations walk together across the whole width of the street, behind the main banner that began to walk at 12:30 to Atocha Street.


Finally, in the square in front of the entrance to the Reina Sofia Museum, several speakers read the Manifesto for Earth Day 2010. It requires to the governments that environmental issues must be more present in their agendas. They also note that the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in 2009 was a fiasco in which United Nations did not reach the goal: all the countries failed to reach any productive agreement. And all this without the police repression suffered by the activists of various NGOs for trying to protest.

Despite this, the organizers say that the United Nations is the only one that can carry out an agreement, because otherwise other countries would make unnecessary and partisan negotiations, surely among the most powerful states. "Rich countries must assume their responsibility in causing climate change," said an activist as he read the manifesto.

As a primary objective to be achieved, these organizations advocate limiting global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperature, or what is the same, stop the greenhouse effect and CO2 emissions. They urge the Spanish Government to make "this country a part of the solution, not the climate change problem."

To do this, they propose the introduction of renewable energy sources, which in addition to ending the climate crisis would be a great relief to the economic crisis. After this reading, the demonstration ends with more music at two in the afternoon.

Within minutes, people had already been dissolved, waiting another year to return to celebrate this day. But what is truly important is to remember the Earth not only today but for the other 364 days of the year.

We can beat malaria, but it still kills one million of people a year

Each year 850,000 people die from a mosquito bite. For this reason tomorrow, 25 April, is the World Day Against Malaria, and several NGOs like UNICEF or Médicos Sin Fronteras (MSF) have reported that there are many simple solutions to prevent these deaths.

Malaria is a disease that strikes mostly to developing countries. Most of the funds allocated go to Africa, as it is on this continent where it produces 90% of deaths. MSF says that "there are improvements in ACT treatment therapies and diagnostic tests are working fast and reliably, they're being very effective in combating this disease."

In the report "Roll Back Malaria: progress and impacts", Unicef has published that "in the past five years the global funds that have invested in malaria control have been multiplied by 10." However, Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF executive director, points out that "while children and pregnant women are still dying from malaria, it is still a great work to be done."

In September, some governments will meet to review the Millennium Development Goals. The UN has established that in 2015 the number of people affected with the diseases of malaria, AIDS or tuberculosis, has to be a half of the people that is now infected.

For this reason, Manuel Pece, MSF doctor, shows that "the commitments made through the Millennium Goals gave the idea to many people in developing countries that these deaths are unnecessary, since these diseases can be prevented and treated."

Sleeping with the enemy

Elham Assi, a 13 year old girl has died in Yemen a few days after getting married with a man of 23. According to what the girl told her mother, her husband tied her up and raped her repeatedly. The medical report of Al-Thawra Hospital determined that the girl suffered severe lacerations in both her vagina and her rectum, resulting in an internal bleeding that caused his death.

This is not the only case of child abuse in this country. According to Oxfam, 40% of Yemeni girls are married before the age of 18. In fact, one third of married women in the country has nearly 15 years old. Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF's regional manager, said that "early marriage increases the risk that girls are dropped out of school, exposed to violence, abuse or exploitation and even of losing their lives because of pregnancies, births and other complications." In September 2009, for example, another girl, aged 11, died after a three-day birth.

Thanks to the efforts of NGOs, in 2009 a new law was drafted that made 17 years old the minimum age for marriage. However, the text was revoked by some lawmakers that considered it anti-Islamic, and the Constitutional Committee has not yet ruled on the matter. It is striking that many of the protests at the idea of eliminating these marriages come from women.

One of the possibilities that the organizations that are involved in this matter point is that many families marry off their daughters because they believe in the protection benefits that her husband could give them, both economically and personally. The problem is not only that they are robbed of their childhood, but in many cases, as in the case of Elham, is that they are being forced to live with his own enemy.

"If you marry a girl of nine years old, a happy marriage will be guaranteed," reads a proverb in the country. The journalist from El Mundo Monica G. Prieto explained that the absence of women's rights, tribal tradition, the money paid to the bride’s family -whose situation is often precarious- and the belief that younger women are more likely to be submissive to their husband are the main reasons for such acts continue in Yemen and in other countries.

According to UNICEF, child marriage is common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of Asia it is often done after puberty, but not the majority. Marriage is also a reason for leaving school and becoming slaves of their husbands. They also have early pregnancies, with the risk of death for the fetus, and are more prone to sexually transmitted diseases.

To make things worse, abuse is really common in marriages of this type. If the girl refuses to get married, she will be punished. Some have come to be killed by their own parents or siblings for staining the honour of their family.

This organization seeks to promote the education of these girls and their autonomy, so that they can enjoy their childhood and adolescence before embarking on other responsibilities that do not correspond in any way with those of a teenager.

Valladolid will host the Global Microcredit Summit (MCS) in 2011

Valladolid (Spain) is the city that the Global Microcredit Summit has chosen to host the meetings that will get more than 2000 delegates from over 100 countries in the world together. They will search for some ways to effectly help the disadvantaged, with an accurate view of women's needs. Sam Daley-Harris is the head of this campaign, and he is also the director of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have to be achieved by 2015.

Daley-Harris will speak on April 12 in a conference that is named 'Microloans to Thieves and Other Revolutionary Acts That Demand Championing'. He will focus on explaining real experiences with this kind of loan. European University Miguel de Cervantes (Valladolid, Spain) will hold the event.

During the speeches, they will try to explain to the audience the experience gained in the Jamii Bora project. This is a new microcredit program that has been launched in the poorest districts of Kenya. This initiative provides loans to people at risk of exclusion, such as thieves, prostitutes or beggars.

The MCS campaign is a part of the RESULTS Educational Fund, an organization that sets up solutions to reduce the level of poverty in the world.

Solidarity concert for Haiti in Madrid

Tomorrow the Palacio de los Deportes of the Comunidad de Madrid (Spain) will hold at 8.00 PM the sixth edition of the concert "La noche de Cadena 100", dedicated to fund the reconstruction of Haiti, in collaboration with Manos Unidas.

These artists will act altruistically: Alejandro Sanz, Nacho Cano, La Oreja de Van Gogh, Millow or El Sueño de Morfeo. Tickets are already available through El Corte Inglés at 20, 25 or 30 euros.

Last Wednesday was the day 100th after the earthquake in Haiti. Despite some signs of recovery have been seen in this country, Haiti is still in extreme vulnerability. Tomorrow you can contribute your two cents.

Global Humanitaria taught sex education to 250 young people from Guatemala

Global Humanitaria -a Spanish NGO- promoted with the help of Fundación Juan Bautista Gutiérrez (Guatemala) several training workshops on sexual health for 250 young people from three different municipalities of the Department of Petén (northern Guatemala).

This workshop aimed to reduce the high infant and maternal mortality rates, early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs / HIV) teaching the youngs how to have a healthy sex life. All this training was divided into ten different workshops that were also directed on self-steem coaching, decision making and communication.

The training program was designed for young leaders from San Luis, Dolores and Poptún in order to make them share the knowledge acquired to other students in the future.

In some departments of Guatemala, teen pregnancy and induced abortions are a public health problem. According to Prensa Libre, abortion is the fouth cause of maternal mortality in Guatemala, with data from the Epidemiological Research Center in Sexual and Reproductive Health. In this country, the average fertility rate is four births per woman, and the maternal mortality rate is 290 per 100,000 births.

From the 5th to the 7th of May, Guatemala will host the V Latin American Congress and the I Central American Congress on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, which woll bring together participants from Latin America to discuss about health and human rights.

Human rights activist Dorothy Height dies at 98

Dorothy Height, 98 years old, died yesterday of natural causes in Washington after a lifetime devoted to defending the equality of all human beings. She began as an activist for human rights of black people in the thirties, a decade characterized by the law of division between races in the United States. In this environment of segregation, black people could not sit in the same part of the bus or drink from the same fountain as whites did. Dorothy experimented early this racial discrimination when the school administrator forbid her for being the choir director because of the colour of her skin. Some years after, when she tried to pursue her studies at Barnard College -University of Columbia- her request was denied because they had already registered the two people of colour that they were allowed per year.

Dorothy Height emerged as spokeswoman for the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), which she led for more than 40 years. This organization was created in 1935 to protect and promote the rights of African American women. She started remonstrating protests against the pitiful situation of the people of her race, which at that time were working in the jobs that the rest of the society did not want to do.

Always in the background, she took part of several revolts in Harlem (New York) and got First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's support for her organization. In the 50's, she finally ended with segregation in schools.

When Martin Luther King spoke to the audience his speech I Have a Dream in front of Lincoln's statue in Washington on August 28th, 1963, she was sitting in the front row at his left. A few months later she witnessed the signing of the law that ended with inequality promoted by John F. Kennedy, the Equal Pay Act. She was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, given by Bill Clinton, and also with the Congressional Gold Medal, granted by George Bush in 2004.

For Height, the only way to advance in human rights and equality of race and gender was constant agitation. Barack Obama said today that she "served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement -witnessing every March and milestone along the way... And even in the final weeks of her life- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest, Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith." The first black United States President also referred her as "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to many Americans."

Sexual assaults continue in Haiti after the earthquake

Thousands of Haitian women who must take refuge in makeshift camps after the earthquake are exposed every day to become rape victims. Amnesty International has publicly denounced that the authorities are giving them an inadequate protection after visiting eight of these camps. The organization explained that the earthquake survivors are living in unsafe conditions, in overcrowding places with lack of toilets, what makes women particularly vulnerable.

Refugees have to sleep in less than one square meter per person. Many children sleep alone at night while their parents are working, and the girls have to bath and dress next to other residents and passersby.

Most of the women that were interviewed by Amnesty International were minors. Among them, one fact spots out: the case of a fifteen year old girl who was raped when she was leaving the camp in search of a place to urinate, because there were no latrines in her place. The inhability of police and judicial system in this period of adjustment makes it particularly difficult for the perpetrators to be punished for these crimes.

According to the information gathered by social collaborators who are working with Haitian women and girls, there is a great fear of reprisals by the perpetrators among them. One girl sent this message to the researchers from the NGOs: "You have to protect us, because I do not want anyone else to suffer what I went through." Delegates from the organization met during their stay the leaders of the Haitian Government, and contacted the head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Also they got in touch with UN agencies that are working in the area, several organizations that defend human rights, and with the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada and France.

A further challenge for communicators

Last March 24 at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) a huge number of people welcomed the book titled 'Comunicación y desarrollo: Pasos hacia la coherencia' (Communication and Development: Steps Towards Coherence). The event was conducted by Carlos Alberdi -Director of the AECID Cultural and Scientific Relations-, Mario Lubetkin -Director of Inter Press Service (IPS)- and Raquel Martínez-Gómez -coordinator of the book.

The organizators of the event were amazed by the interest that the book took in the audience. In fact, Raquel Martínez-Gómez stated that "people demand more and more information about issues concerning development each day". "An example of this is the great amount of people that are here to welcome this book", she continued.

Thirteen analysts of international prestige have worked in the book, such as Ignacio Ramonet, Marcial Murciano, Rosa María Alfaro, Steffen Beitz or Germán Rojas. They reflect on communication as a key tool for promoting development and educating citizens in values. These authors made a presentation back in July 2009 with the same title as the book at the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP).

In the book, they ensure that communication is globally controlled by a dozen of editor nowadays. Therefore, Lubetkin highlighted "the journalists' need to raise awareness on issues of cooperation and solidarity in civil society". For both the AECID and the IPS, it is strictly necessary to make development issues a priority on the media agenda. Only this way "we could generate widespread awareness about these issues", he asserted.

Within this context of reflection, the AECID and the IPS have arranged a new meeting in Santander (Spain) the 5 to 7 July titled "Communication and Development: Policies, Networks and Technologies". It will be a communication forum in which different experts in the field of development will exchange their own experiences. The objective is to create channels of coordination to improve public communication policies.

Queen Sofía of Spain and Yunus discuss the efectiveness of microcredits

Queen Sofía of Spain is in Kenya now to visit the places where investments have been already done in the framework of Africa and Middle East Regional Microcredit Summit.

The Queen of Spain met yesterday morning Mwai Kibaki, President of Kenya, in Nairobi. In the afternoon, she visited 50 representatives of the Spanish colony there, most of whom are cooperants working in drinking water projects, sanitation and medical care.

It is scheduled for today that Queen Sofía will meet Muhammad Yunus, the developer of that microcredit and founder of the Grameen Bank, which provides the loans. They will visit the crowded shanty town of Mathare Valley, five kilometers away from the Kenyan capital, to verify the results of all the work that Jamii Bora -a NGO that gives microcredits- has done with marginalized population.

Also, Queen Sofía will visit tomorrow Kaputei Town, a new city that the Jamii Bora has created in the region of Central Kajido. There, the NGO wants to provide decent living conditions to the population of Mathare Valley, like tap water and electricity.

Spain has granted over two million of this microcredits over the last 12 years, to the amount of more than 600 million euros (over $800 million).

Welcome!

Global Conscience begins with the sole aim of spreading the work done by NGOs all across the world that have no place in mainstream media.

We are four journalism students in their senior year that have decided to try to build some social awareness through the dissemination of events that require the action of NGOs. This blog begins as part of an academic practice, but we would like to become a reference in this field, that is still insufficiently explored. In our humble opinion, the world still needs for greater media media coverage of these issues, in order to get the society fully informed.

We would like to give voice to all those people that are only reminded when a natural disaster happens in their area. We want to stand up for those that have lost everything, and nobody cares. In the end, we would like to remember all the people that society forgets when they stop being hot news.

In Global Conscience you will find news involving Medicine, Economy, Women's Rights, Cooperation and Development, Literacy, Environment, Human Rights...

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Celia, Lucía, Paloma and Nerea