CFUW Stratford is hosting an Elizabethan Dinner at the Queen’s Inn on January 22, 2010. This is just the thing to help you chase away the cold, winter blues. Join us for a great meal (Elizabethan style), exciting entertainment and wonderful company.

How could it get any better? I am so glad you asked! The proceeds of this event will go to help promising young women in the area pursue post-secondary education.

If you would like to help us out:  buy a ticket, spread the word, invite a guest.

Tickets are available from:

• Pat Reavy at (519) 273-0176; and
• Queen’s Inn at (519) 271-1400

Canadian Politics

• This Sunday marks the 20th Anniversary of the Polytechnique Massacre. Articles reflecting on this anniversary and the continuing struggle to end violence against women can be found here and here.
• The Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois MPs who sit on the House of Commons status of women committee boycotted the Tory government’s l’Ecole Polytechnique ceremony this week. They argued that Tory policies have rolled back the fight for women’s equality and safety including; elimination of the court challenges program and to the move to abolish the gun registry – something that some Liberal and NDP members also support.
• This week celebrates 20 years since Audrey McLaughlin was the first woman to be elected as a Leader of a Federal Political Party.

American Politics

• The Senate voted for the Mikulski Women’s Health Amendment to HR 3590, the Senate health reform bill. The amendment guarantees coverage and affordability of critical women’s preventive health care, including mammography screening for women under the age of 50, and ensures physician involvement in decisions on the need for screening.

Reproductive Choice

• The Baltimore City Council passed a law requiring all pregnancy centers that do not offer abortion information to post signs in English and Spanish to that effect. The mayor is expected to sign the bill, which will enforce the new policy with a $150 fee for centers that don’t comply.

Gendered Violence

• The Ugandan Human Rights Commission released a statement this week as part of the 16 days of activism to end violence against women, highlighting the link between gendered violence and poverty.

Economic Crisis

• A report released this week, measuring the pre-Olympic Games impact, has shown a 373% increase in homelessness in Metro Vancouver since 2002, the year before the city won the Olympic Bid.

International

• The draft Anti-Homosexuality Bill is part of a growing campaign against homosexuals in Uganda, the author of the bill has defended it saying, “Homosexuality is not part of the human rights we believe in.” Critics say the aim is to divert attention from corruption and other political issues ahead of the 2011 national vote.
• The 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was given to Zimbabwean activists Jenni Williams and Magondonga Mahlangu for their work empowering women of Zimbabwe to speak out on the desperate hunger, crumbling health and education systems, and domestic violence and rape in that country. They have faced government repression for their efforts.
• The number of women dying from pregnancy-related complications in Nigeria is akin to a plane crashing every day, but the crisis gets less noticed amid pandemics such as AIDS and malaria.
• The Swiss passed the ban of Minarets this week, what some see as an extremist or even racist step which highlights apparent double standards in Europe’s respect for human rights.
• A group of 4 Nigerian farmers are suing Royal Dutch Shell, claiming that the oil firm polluted their land in the Niger Delta region. They will ask a court in the Netherlands for compensation and to force Shell to clean up the area.
• Violence against women throughout the world represents a public health crisis of pandemic proportions. This article discusses worldwide violence against women in marking the 10th anniversary of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
• The list of 100 Top Women in Canada was released; here are some of the highlights.

Canadian Politics

• Chief of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), Ghislain Picard commented this week on the news that the Harper government intends to modify the financial support program for First Nations students. This decision goes against the recommendations made in the 2007 report by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and did not consult First Nations groups.

American Politics

• President Obama will announce the U.S. troop strategy for Afghanistan in a speech next Tuesday. The United States has been in Afghanistan for 8 years, sources reported this week that the Pentagon is making detailed plans to send about 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan in anticipation of Obama’s speech.
• The Health Care Reform Bill won a key victory Saturday night as the Senate voted to move ahead with a floor debate on a sweeping $848 billion bill.

Reproductive Choice

• Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott applauded Saskatoon doctors for restricting access to abortion services. In a press release he wrote “Saskatoon’s doctors should be commended for the leadership they are showing by reducing the availability of abortion in our city and for supporting real alternatives for women in need.”

Stand up for Reproductive Choice and contact Mr. Vellacott here.

• This article examines the Fertility Control Provisions in the US Health Care Reform Legislation, beyond the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. These provisions are discriminatory against low-income women.

Gendered Violence

• British women will have the “right to know” if their partner has a history of domestic violence under proposals from police chiefs.
• Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon marked the 10th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by launching a Network of Men Leaders, a major new initiative bringing together current and former politicians, activists, religious and community figures to combat the global pandemic.

Economic Crisis

• The 2009 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada, released by the national awareness group Campaign 2000, report 637,000 Canadian children who live in poverty. Low income, two-parent families would need an additional $9,400 a year to bring their income up to the poverty line.

International

• A proposal championed by right-wing parties in Switzerland to ban minarets (distinctive spires on Islamic Mosques) goes to a nationwide vote on Sunday in a referendum that has set off an emotional debate.
• Iran has frozen the bank accounts of Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and confiscated her Peace Prize medal.
• Ottawa’s attempt to derail a landmark Human Rights Commission Tribunal hearing into discrimination against aboriginal children in the child welfare system has been denied by the federal Court of Canada. Tuesday’s decision is a “huge victory” for aboriginal children, the human rights complaint was launched almost three years ago.
• Oil-rich Guinea goes to the polls on Sunday in what observers say is a sham election designed to rubber stamp the rule of long-term president Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
• Kenyan women’s groups as well as political, regional and professional leaders gathered in Nairobi to audit each chapter and article of the harmonized draft constitution. Provisions in the draft constitution, as captured by their audit, are expected to reverse past gender injustices and biases, hence the importance of women of all races and classes to own the process, the meeting said.
• The Sudanese journalist, Lubna Ahmed Hussein, briefly jailed for wearing “indecent trousers” said Wednesday she might not return to her country but instead continue her campaign for women’s rights from abroad.

Canadian Politics

• Senior diplomat Richard Colvin testified at a House of Commons committee Wednesday that he warned government and military officials that Afghan detainees being turned over by Canadian soldiers were being tortured. Conservatives have denied the credibility of Colvin’s testimony.

American Politics

• The Senate is expected to vote Saturday on whether to take up sweeping health legislation that would cover five million fewer people than a companion bill passed by the House of Representatives, but it would cost less, in part because Senate Democratic leaders felt they had to win support from fiscally conservative members of their party. For a breakdown of some of the differences between the House and Senate bills, click here.
• Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an unannounced visit to Kabul on Wednesday, warned Hamid Karzai that future civilian aid would depend in part on how his government performed in areas like developing an effective army and curbing cronyism.

Reproductive Choice

• A report released by the George Washington University, found that the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange. Read the report here.

Gendered Violence

• The suspect in the brutal homophobia fueled murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado in Puerto Rico was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and four other counts. Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested late Monday in connection with the slaying of the teenager, whose decapitated, dismembered and partially burned body was found Friday afternoon on a road in central Puerto Rico.
• Waiting lists are a common occurrence in crisis shelters, “which is a strange thing to have when you’re talking about women needing to get into a safe place, away from someone who is a risk of violence toward them,” admits the executive director of the YWCA Regina crisis shelter.

Health

• In a new report released Wednesday by Statistics Canada, the highest-earning Canadians can look forward to 10 more years of healthy living than their poorest counterparts.

International

• A new United Nations report, released this week has chronicles the effects climate change will have on women. “Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed the least to it.” This article, explores the effect climate change will have on global food supply.
• A Somali woman has been stoned to death for committing what a judge has said was adultery. The 20-year-old divorcee was executed on Tuesday after confessing to having had sex with a 29-year-old unmarried man.
• A fascinating interview with Malalai Joya was featured in the Globe and Mail this week, to read it click here.
• A growing number of Egyptian women are demanding divorce and seeking marital counseling. The social stigma against these practices has weakened as talking about relationship problems have become more popular in the media.
• Following the Pope’s call to Anglicans to join Catholicism and recent changes to Anglican practices on ordaining women as Bishops; Rev Vincent Nichols, the most senior Catholic in England and Wales warned that Anglicans should not become Catholic to protest against female clergy or sexual ethics.
• World leaders convened on Rome this week for a United Nations sponsored Hunger Summit. Leaders rallied around a new strategy to fight global hunger and help poor countries feed themselves, but failed to pledge funds sought by the U.N.
• November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance, and a day to grieve Trans and gender non-conforming people killed over the past year because of fear and hatred. It also serves as a time to raise awareness about all gendered violence.

Click the button to see the latest update from CFUW National.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre that took 14 young women’s lives.

Find a vigil in your community and take action to end violence against women. 20 years later the fight continues. Help us advocate for stronger gun control and save the gun registry.

Canadian Politics

• An independent report released Friday, details the rising numbers of Aboriginal offenders, and the growing number of Aboriginal women in the Canadian penal system. Aboriginal women and men continue to be over-represented in Canadian prisons, are given longer sentences, and fare significantly worse when they are released. The report suggests that the Correctional Service of Canada has not done enough to ensure that Aboriginal offenders are given sufficient opportunity to access culturally-sensitive programming and safely return to their communities.

American Politics

• This article discusses the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the US Healthcare Reform Bill; to secure passage of this legislation in the House, the Democrats have chosen a course that risks the well-being of millions of women for generations to come. In response to this, more than three dozen House Democrats have signed a letter to House Leader Nancy Pelosi firmly pledging to vote against the bill if it contains an anti-choice amendment.

Reproductive Choice

• In the midst of the Stupak-Pitts amendment debate in the United States, it has been reported that the Republican National Committee has covered abortion in its employee’s health plan since 1991. However in response to the backlash they received the RNC announced today that it will no longer offer a health plan that includes abortion coverage.

Gendered Violence

• This week the Canadian Labour Congress announced their upcoming post card campaign to mark the 20th anniversary of the massacre at École Polytechnique and call on the Prime Minister to take action on ending violence against women.
• This week, B.C. Attorney-General Mike de Jong said that a public inquiry into the Highway of Tears investigations is possible, but the first priority is solving the 18 cases of missing and murdered women found along this stretch of highway.

Economic Crisis

• A gendered perspective on the recession reveals that some women—namely those who were poor and disempowered to begin with—have fallen further behind as workers, mothers, and community members. The Center for American Progress reports that unmarried women have been hit from all sides by job loss, the foreclosure epidemic, and the health care crisis.

Health

• This Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO), an agency of the United Nations, released its first-ever study of women’s health worldwide. The study, (found here,) reported that H.I.V. is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44.

International

• 50 women who called themselves the Lioness group became the first female graduates of Iraq’s police officer training academy.
• The number of women in Eastern Europe and Central Asia dying from complications in childbirth and pregnancy has dramatically dropped by more than 50% over the last 10 years.
• This week the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) discussed on a tour in Mali, the negative consequences climate change will have on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
• Malalai Joya, the youngest woman ever elected to Afghanistan’s parliament, was in Vancouver this weekend to speak and launch a book tour for her new memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. She is currently touring Canada, to see other tour dates click here.
• Indian election authorities granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country’s voter lists.
• A report release by UNICEF this week has shown that a third of deaths in children under five in developing countries are linked to poor diet. It also revealed 195million children – one in three - have stunted growth.

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The November newsletter is now available.  Click here to download a copy.

Canadian Politics

• On Wednesday, a majority of MPs voted to give approval in principle to a private member’s bill that, if passed, would see the repeal of the gun registry, abolishing the legal requirements to register long-barreled rifles and shotguns. 12 NDP MPs and 8 Liberal MPs voted with the Conservatives to pass the bill; the Bloc Quebecois voted unanimously against it.
• A significant announcement about the murder of women along British Columbia’s Highway of Tears will be made this weekend. The cases include 18 women, all but one aboriginal, who have gone missing from the 750-kilometre stretch of highway that runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George, B.C.

American Politics

• The Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry interracial couples resigned Tuesday, after weeks of calls for his ouster from civil rights groups and several public officials, including the governor.
• Abortion and Immigration remain barriers to passing the Health Care Reform Bill in the United States. House Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have decided to allow a vote on an amendment introduced by anti-choice Democrat, Bart Stupak of Michigan that would, according to Congressional sources who spoke to The Washington Post, “prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services. It also would block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.”

Reproductive Choice

• This article discusses, among other things, the attempts to define personhood at conception in some US states.
• In a report released this week a panel of independent experts concluded that sex-education programs that encourage teens to delay sexual activity and teach them about contraception cut risky sexual behavior, increase condom use and lower the chances of getting the AIDS virus and other infections.

Gendered Violence

• The Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC) wrote this Op-Ed regarding bill C-391 and the role gun registration continues to play in the issue of gender-based violence.

• The United Nations kicked off a campaign Friday mobilizing people around the world to take part in a drive to stop the pandemic of violence suffered by women at the hands of men.

Economic Crisis

• Black women are losing about twice as much as white women in employment terms, government data show. From October 2008 to October 2009, the percentage of white women employed fell to 55.7 percent from 57.6 percent, Bureau of Labor Statistics show, for black women the fall was to 54.8 percent from 58.5 percent.

International

• Students and faculty have marched in support of Melissa Bradshaw, a professor of women’s and gender studies at DePaul University who was denied tenure. Bradshaw is one of four faculty members who were rejected, they claim it because they are women.
• The head of the United Nations in Afghanistan threatened a complete pullout yesterday after half of his staff were evacuated following last week’s terrorist attack, in which five UN personnel died.
• Research released this week shows Australian women MPs work harder than their male colleagues.
• The Las Vegas’ Asian community is taking on human trafficking; Las Vegas is among the top destinations in the world for human trafficking.
• Pakistan’s parliament has approved a bill increasing the penalty for those convicted of sexually harassing women. The bill is the latest in a series introduced by the current government to improve the status of women in Pakistani society.
• Nancy Spero, a pioneering feminist artist who examined the treatment of women and the horrors of war, has died at the age of 83.

CFUW was represented at:

The Governor General’s Persons Awards – October 1: at Government House where two CFUW members received the Person’s Awards. Lawyer and activist Daphne Dumont, nominated by CFUW Charlottetown and from Manitoba, Mary Scott – of UWC Winnipeg received the award.

The Will to Intervene: at the project launch for the “Will to Intervene (W2I) Project”. The report entitled Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities” was made public by Senator Hugh Segal, Ed Broadbent and Mr Robert Fowler. General Romeo Dallaire was one of the speakers at the event.

• CFUW statement in support of the general principles of intervention in humanitarian cases to prevent mass atrocities.

UN Resolution 1325: October 21: CFUW (the Executive Director) and its working partner Peacebuild met with Mme Francine Lalonde and Mme Joanne Deschamps to discuss UN Resolution 1325 – Women, Peace and Security. We have been meeting with every member of the Foreign Affairs Committee to bring their attention to this issue. We are calling for a report on what has been done. These women heard us and they have offered to bring this to their party convention to place it on the party agenda.
- August: the NDP Party: Youth Group brought a resolution to the floor on UN Resolution 1325 and it was adopted at the NDP Convention.

Attended the Person’s Week launch of the Liberal Party of Canada “Pink Book, Volume III: An Action Plan for Canadian Women”.

Received the NDP Fairness for Women Action Plan – view at http://irenemathyssen.ndp.ca/node/944

Other
Gun Control: Wrote to the Government in support of gun control. CFUW encourages Clubs to be involved in this important issue.

Produced a Gun Control Kit to be circulated to targeted areas where it is particularly important for the MP to hear from CFUW members. The NDP member from the Nickle Belt, Sudbury
needs to hear from you and could be persuaded if you contact him

A postcard campaign: We need your help to get postcards to your local MP – order through cfuwadvocacy@rogers.com .

Climate Change Kit: working with a Club member CFUW will send out its Climate Change Kit next week – in both official languages. Earmark this for immediate action.

Wrote to Senators expressing CFUW support for the reform of Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime (CAMR).

Position Paper on Bill C-422, An Act to Amend the Divorce Act