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I am Generation Equality: Zere, feminist singer

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I am Generation Equality: Zere, feminist singer

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https://eca.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/12/i-am-generation-equality-zere-feminist-singer

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I am Generation Equality: Zere, feminist singer

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Twenty-year-old singer, Zere Asylbek, is from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and in 2018 she released her first Kyrgyz-language song `Kyz` (‘Girl’). The song created a huge backlash in the country, as it called on Kyrgyz society to respect women and their choices. She also performed during the Civil Society F…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFm-hw2rUeA

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Vesna - My sister's crown ( Official Music Video )

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Vesna will perform at Eurovision with the controversial song My Sister's Crown in May (in Czech)

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Vesna will perform at Eurovision with the controversial song My Sister's Crown in May (in Czech)

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https://www.ceskenoviny.cz/zpravy/2324457

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Vesna vystoupí na Eurovizi s kontroverzní písní My Sister’s Crown v květnu | ČeskéNoviny.cz

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Praha - Dívčí skupině Vesna bude reprezentovat Česko na letošní hudební soutěži Eurovize konané v Liverpoolu v prvním ze dvou semifinálových kol 9. května. Finále se odehraje 13. května. O vítězství budou usilovat hudebníci z celkem 37 zemí. ČTK o tom za českou delegaci na Eurovizi informoval Fi…

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https://eca.unwomen.org/en

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Poland’s feminist punks SIKSA are taking no prisoners

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Poland’s feminist punks SIKSA are taking no prisoners

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/features/show/11002/poland-feminist-punks-siksa-are-taking-no-prisoners

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https://femagora.org/engagements-partnerships-spotlight-initative-regionalcsforum2022-en

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The Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme for Central Asia and Afghanistan (the SI Regional Programme) in partnership with the FemAgora Public Foundation and in collaboration with Akimat of Turkestan Region and Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University will hold the Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Regional Forum - Central Asia (the Forum) in Kazakhstan, on November 1-2, 2022.

The Forum aims to empower Central Asian civil society to meaningfully and strategically engage with the Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme and the Central Asian Alliance on ending Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and harmful practices. It is co-chaired by Leyla Zuleikha Makhmudova, founder of FemAgora Public Foundation, and Shamah Bulangis, coordinating member of Spotlight Initiative Global Reference Group (CS-GRG).

The event brings together civil society (CS) organizations and representatives from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, on campus of Ahmed Yassawi University in the city of Turkestan.

The Central Asian civil society has already been involved in the various global processes and efforts in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a long time. High-level statements and discussions within the latter largest Regional SDG Summit︎︎︎ of Central Asian countries in June 2022 once again highlighted the need to strengthen constructive regional partnerships and bold actions to achieve sustainable development, including eliminating SGBV.

There is a wide range of local and regional public sector associations and CS platforms addressing and responding to SGBV and harmful practices within the region. For three decades Central Asian women-led organizations and women experts have been part of and contributed to global processes such as Beijing Platform for Action, Commission on the Status of Women, Generation Equality Forum (GEF) and so on. At the same time, particular thematic, sectoral, and community-oriented initiatives and collaborations continue to work in silos and have not had an opportunity to join global efforts and participate in the SI Regional Programme activities.

There are larger diverse multi-stakeholder ecosystems that inform gender equality and sustainable development impact in the region, however they are not yet directly involved in the response to end SGBV and harmful practices. Social and cultural enterprises, private sector stakeholders running social and corporate responsibility initiatives, community-based initiatives, researcher groups, academic institutions, artist collectives, media outlets, internet influencers, and local celebrities are potential valuable contributors to the SI, GEF processes, and SDGs agenda, and are to be equally engaged.

The Forum agenda will be informed by the prior online expert discussions with participation of Central Asian women-led groups, CS organizations and representatives, and other agents of change responding to SGBV, as well as CS-GRG members, SI Global Secretariat and Regional Programme staff, to be held in September 2022. A monetary gratitude will be offered to CS experts participating in the discussions.

Pre-Forum Online Expert Discussions (September 2022)

200 CS organizations and representatives from five Central Asian countries will be invited to join the online expert discussion with the objective to design Forum agenda, activities, and resulting documents.

Open call registration process will give an equal opportunity to CS organizations and representatives to express their interest to join online expert discussions. Invitation process is based on the "first come-first served" principle and screened based on the regional geographical representation and the level of engagement with the SI. List of participants and agenda of online expert discussions will be tailored to fit in with their experience and level of engagement. If needed, a waiting list will be created.

Registration period is open 15 - 31 August

Spotlight Initiative Regional Civil Society Forum
Central Asia in Turkestan (November 2022)

Regional CS Forum will take place in a hybrid format and be organized from a cross-sectoral and multicultural perspective on campus of Ahmed Yassawi University in the city of Turkestan. The Forum will be co-chaired by the SI Global Reference Group and FemAgora Public Foundation to ensure global-regional coherence of the efforts, allowing for the preparation of the CS statement on joining the Central Asian Alliance on ending SGBV and harmful practices.

The Forum will unite around 30 civil society organizations and representatives from five Central Asian countries present offline along with their 30 counterparts present online to multiply each country's CS presence in the regional exchange. The UN Resident Coordinator for Kazakhstan, members of the SI Regional Steering Committee and Programme Management Unit as well as other implementing partners from Recipient UN Organizations (UN Women, UNFPA, UNDP) and the EU will join the Forum.

Such a diverse presence will allow for partnership-building and strategizing with each other across thematic sectors and national agendas in regional efforts of SI and larger response to end SGBV and harmful practices in the region.

The Spotlight Initiative is a global initiative of the United Nations which has received generous support from the European Union. Its aim is to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. The Initiative represents an unprecedented global effort to invest in gender equality and women's empowerment as a precondition and driver for the achievement of the SDGs.

The Spotlight Initiative's governing body is chaired by United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission Josep Borrell, who provide the Initiative's overall strategic direction. Regional-level implementation is led by the United Nations Resident Coordinator for Kazakhstan Ms. Michaela Friberg-Storey, in partnership with UN agencies, European Union delegations and civil society organizations.

The Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme for Central Asia and Afghanistan is fostering legal reforms, strengthening capacities of the respective institutions and women's movements, promoting gender-equitable attitudes, and enhancing systems for collecting data on violence against women and girls. The SI Programme partners with a broad range of actors, including civil society, donors, practitioners, academia, and media, to facilitate the elimination of harmful practices and advocate further gender transformation in the region.

Since 2020, the Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme for Central Asia and Afghanistan is being implemented by three UN Agencies - UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women under the overall coordination of the UN Resident Coordinator. The programme team is based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. One of the SI Regional Programme's critical outputs is the development of the Central Asian Alliance on ending SGBV and harmful practices, composed of multistakeholders including government and non-governmental stakeholders.

Civil Society Global Reference Group (CS-GRG)

Within the Spotlight Initiative, civil society is systematically engaged at national, regional and global levels through the partnership with Civil Society Reference Groups. They represent civil society at the governance and decision-making bodies of the Initiative and aim to advise the Initiative, to advocate for the realization of its objectives and to hold the Initiative accountable for its commitments. At the global level, the CS-RG is comprised of 20 diverse members, selected by a civil society-led selection committee in April 2019.

The Forum is co-chaired by Shamah Bulangis, the youngest member and the Advocacy and Monitoring Co-Coordinator of the SI CS-GRG. Shamah is also part of Transform Education, a feminist coalition of youth-led networks hosted by the UN Girls Education Initiative. She is an alumnus of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Academic Fellowship on Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development from the University of Connecticut, USA.

The 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and its historic Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, considered the most influential blueprint for women's rights to date, presented civil society and feminist advocates with an opportunity to build stronger advocacy movement for gender equality and foster multi-stakeholder partnerships. GEF aims to channel high-level public and private investment and political leadership from various actors over the next five years. Its 5-year action journey is built around a Global Acceleration Plan - a global road map for gender equality that aims to fulfill the promise of the Beijing Platform for Action and achieve SDGs.

In Central Asia, the Governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, FemAgora Public Foundation, and NASL Public Organization officially joined the GEF Global Acceleration Plan in combating the global pandemic of SGBV.

FemAgora is a Central Asian civil society organization founded by women and gender-sensitive experts, grassroots practitioners, artists, media professionals, and researchers in 2018 and registered in 2019 as a public foundation in Kazakhstan. Our commitment is to strengthen our women-led ecosystems, amplify intersectional practice, and make ideas, work, and contributions of women visible through public engagement, knowledge management, and creative production.

FemAgora Public Foundation is a GEF commitment maker. Our Action Coalitions' (AC) themes of interest are: Action to end Gender-Based Violence; Feminist Action for Climate Justice; Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality; and Feminist Movements and Leadership. FemAgora is committed to addressing peace and security, pandemic response, sustainable development, youth leadership through locally driven and intersectional experiences of Central Asians across all thematic commitments.

Our immediate expert outreach is currently 200 people and counting, including men and masculinity experts among many. Our co-founders and team members serve on various civil society advisories and reference groups of the national and international organizations such as MFA Kazakhstan working group on human dimension, UN Women CSAG, Spotlight Initiative RCS-RG, FREE STEM Fund, IREX Community Engagement Exchange programme, Young Feminist Fund FRIDA, and others.

The Forum is co-chaired by Leyla Zuleikha Makhmudova, a founder of our organization and a survivor of gender-based violence. She is a National Gender Youth Advisor engaged by UN Women to consult on strengthening multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration in GEF processes in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Leyla is a Central Asian gender expert with ten years in movement-building, social entrepreneurship, and professional consulting for local non-profits, international organizations, and financial institutions. Kazakhstan Forbes has recognized her as 30 under 30 in 2020.

Ahmed Yasawi University is one of the leading multidisciplinary universities in Kazakhstan. Established in 1991 on the basis of the Intergovernmental Agreement between Kazakhstan and Turkey, University aims to train modern highly qualified specialists among youth from the Turkic-speaking countries. 140 educational programmes are implemented at all degree levels in following nine areas: Pedagogical Sciences; Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences; Journalism and Information; Business, Management and Law; Natural Sciences; Mathematics and Statistics; Information and Communication Technologies; Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction Industries; Health, Social security (medicine), and Services.

Current university rector Dr. Zhanar Temirbekova is a distinguished leader and researcher in the field of education, transformative management, and women entrepreneurship. Previously she served as an advisor to the president of the Almaty University of Management, was rector of the Eurasian Technological University, and worked in KBTU, SDU, and KIMEP University.

The Turkestan region was formed on March 10, 1932. The administrative center is the city of Turkestan, which is a touristic center with invaluable historical heritage and contemporary cultural landmarks. The Turkestan region Akimat (governor's office) provides guidance and regulation, legal, administrative, advisory and logistical support for the activities in the region. The progressive programme of intersectoral response to gender-based violence piloted in the region by UNFPA Kazakhstan and Akimat became one of the leading national practices.

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The Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme for Central Asia and Afghanistan (the SI Regional Programme) in partnership with the FemAgora Public Foundation and in collaboration with Akimat of Turkestan Region and Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University will hold the Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Regional Forum - Central Asia (the Forum) in Kazakhstan, on November 1-2, 2022.

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https://youtu.be/0hN-jBTZ5ls

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Зере - Сүйүнчү

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Kyrgyzstan’s Zere Asylbek Back With a Moody Political Track

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Kyrgyzstan’s Zere Asylbek Back With a Moody Political Track

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https://thediplomat.com/2019/09/kyrgyzstans-zere-asylbek-back-with-a-moody-political-track/

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Kyrgyzstan’s Zere Asylbek Back With a Moody Political Track

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Zere Asylbek’s new single pushes Kyrgyz society to get over its political apathy.

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Mediazona (co-founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot)

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Mediazona (co-founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot)

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https://en.zona.media/

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It’s gotten worse. War and repression news from Russia

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Russia's Leaders Won't Deal With a Domestic Violence Epidemic. These Women Stepped Up Instead

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Russia's Leaders Won't Deal With a Domestic Violence Epidemic. These Women Stepped Up Instead

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https://time.com/5942127/russia-domestic-violence-women/

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A s Nastya waits for her husband Kirill to come home from work, thoughts run through her head. She smooths the creases from the tablecloth and lays the table in the dimly lit kitchen of their apartment in Moscow, careful to place the knife and fork perfectly straight next to Kirill's plate. "Sometimes he loses his temper, but no one's perfect," she thinks. "I can't do anything right."

When Kirill returns, he stares at the food his wife has prepared, then, when she asks what's wrong, begins hurling insults. "You're useless, even in the kitchen," he says, becoming more aggressive as Nastya tries to reason with him, grabbing her and pushing her to the ground. She calls the police begging for help but knows they won't come. When she calls her father, Kirill grabs the phone and convinces him everything is fine. "She's just being dramatic," Kirill says, pressing his hand over Nastya's mouth to silence her.

Nastya and Kirill aren't real-they are characters in an interactive exercise-but they might as well be. Game 116, as it's called, was launched in 2018, but it's perhaps even more relevant now than it was then. The exercise, which puts users in Nastya's shoes and asks them to choose options to handle Kirill's wrath, is an attempt to highlight domestic violence that activists say has soared in Russia during the pandemic.

That's true around the world. As lockdowns trapped women at home with abusers, advocates and authorities report that calls for help from abuse victims doubled and tripled. In response, more than 120 countries have strengthened services for female survivors of violence during the COVID-19 crisis.

Russia is an exception, taking little concrete action. In April, the Kremlin denied that domestic violence was a problem and claimed it had decreased, even as Russian organizations reported they were struggling to keep up with a spike in calls for help. With shelters across the country closed because of the pandemic, some women were even fined for violating quarantine rules by fleeing their abusers. It wasn't until May that the government declared domestic violence an emergency that allowed someone to break quarantine.

Though Russia has since lifted mandatory lockdowns, unemployment and economic despair sparked by the pandemic portend dangerous times ahead. "When a cycle of violence begins, it's not going to go away just because the pandemic goes down," says Marina Pisklakova-Parker, director of ANNA, one of the non-profits led by women that are working to fill the vacuum left by Russia's failure to address the problem.

Game 116 is the brainchild of a Moscow advertising agency, Room 485, which created it in collaboration with women's-rights activists, including Pisklakova-Parker and Anna Rivina of Nasiliu.net (its name, which is the same as its URL, translates to "no to violence"), another non-profit working on domestic violence. The name Game 116 comes from Article 116 of the Russian criminal code, which defines battery as causing "pain" but not resulting in physical damage.

The project was personal for many involved. The actor who portrays Nastya had left an abusive partner shortly before production began, while Sophya Katulska, a director at Room 485, who wrote the script, based it on her own experience in an abusive relationship. By forcing users to choose how Nastya reacts throughout the scenario and showing the outcome, Katulska says she wants to do away with the idea that "correct" behavior can stop abuse in a relationship.

That message is clear. No matter what Nastya does-crying, screaming for help, fighting back or apologizing-she cannot placate Kirill. He suffocates her with a pillow, strangles her or walks away, leaving Nastya to live in fear of his next outburst.

A fifth of all Russian women have been physically abused by a partner, and an estimated 14,000 women in the country die as a result of domestic violence each year-more than nine times the number of deaths in the U.S., though Russia's population is less than half the size. At least 155 countries have passed laws criminalizing domestic violence. But in Russia, there is no such law; the government has even made it easier for domestic violence to go unpunished. In 2017, its parliament passed a law making any domestic violence that does not cause "significant injury"-defined as requiring hospital treatment-an administrative rather than criminal offense. First-time offenders can walk away with fines as low as 5,000 rubles ($88).

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia's government has failed to pass more than 40 draft laws to protect victims of violence at home. The dearth of legislation not only allows abusers to go unpunished but also leaves women without access to legal protection. Police often refuse to respond to or investigate cases, typically dismissing violence at home as a private matter. "Call me when he kills you" was how one police officer responded to a woman's call for help, says Yulia Gorbunova, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, who has interviewed domestic-violence victims across Russia. In the spring, the government postponed discussion about the latest draft law on domestic violence until after the pandemic. "It would have been a perfect time to do it," she says.

ANNA coordinates efforts by 150 groups across Russia and the former Soviet states, and Nasiliu.net offers free legal and psychological help to victims of abuse. But they face increasing hostility from the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, which has enjoyed a staggering rise in influence during President Vladimir Putin 's years in power. There was fierce backlash to a 2019 bill that would have introduced restraining orders-a first in Russia-and harsher punishments for first-time offenders, including short jail sentences instead of just fines. More than 180 Russian Orthodox and conservative groups signed an open letter to Putin asking him to block the law, claiming it was the work of a "radical feminist ideology"; the church also said it had an "antifamily" focus. The bill didn't pass.

"If you don't support conservative radical values, then you basically don't fit into any policy," says Pisklakova-Parker, who established ANNA in 1993 and created the nation's first domestic-violence help line. She says she has been the subject of a smear campaign by ultraconservative groups that claim she works for the U.S. government. The Kremlin has effectively cast groups fighting domestic violence as "traitors" and requires those that receive foreign funding and engage in "political activity" to declare themselves "foreign agents," a derogatory Soviet-era term for political dissidents. State funding for these groups has been slashed: in 2020, Putin's annual grants program gave only $26,968 to organizations protecting victims of domestic violence, an 88% drop from 2019, according to the investigative news outlet OpenMedia. All but one of an estimated dozen domestic-violence crisis centers and legal-aid organizations were denied funding for 2021.

Despite government hostility, public opinion appears to be increasingly on the side of women. According to state-run polls, in January 2017, 59% of Russians supported decriminalizing domestic violence, but by August 2019, that figure fell to 26%. In December 2019, 70% of Russians supported a law to help protect women against domestic violence. When Nasiliu.net was close to shutting down in 2019 because of a lack of funds, donors gave Rivina enough money to expand the organization.

Businesses have also started to take a stand. In 2019, one of Russia's largest banks, Alfa Capital, fired a top manager after his wife accused him of beating her. When TV presenter Regina Todorenko suggested in April that women are to blame for being abused, brands dropped her as their spokesperson; she later apologized and donated $28,000 to Nasiliu.net. And survivors are becoming more visible: Margarita Gracheva, whose husband chopped off her hands with an ax in 2017, has become a household name, regularly appearing in the media, including on state-run TV.

In the face of government resistance during the pandemic, nonprofits have stepped up. In June, ANNA extended its hotline to operate 24/7 and set up a chatbot for women who might not be able to speak by phone; Nasiliu.net also offers volunteers to accompany women to police. Pisklakova-Parker and Rivina worked with hotels and volunteers who offered rooms in their homes to take in women and children and organized transport and food packages. "We basically took over everything the state should have been doing," says Pisklakova-Parker.

Activists are also using social media and digital campaigns to change Russian minds about domestic abuse. Katulska, 39, says violence at home was seen as normal when she was growing up, shrugged off with the attitude of "if he beats you, it means he loves you." Many Russians still hold that view. The ad agency Room 485 launched an Instagram campaign in 2020 with the hashtag "if he beats you it doesn't mean he loves you" and is developing another Instagram campaign to raise awareness on how to deal with abuse in relationships.

Since 2018, Nasiliu.net volunteers have created social media campaigns featuring video clips of famous Russian men saying it's unacceptable to hit women. Last year, more than 100 volunteers attended a Nasiliu.net program that pairs volunteers with victims who need someone to speak on their behalf to lawyers and other third parties. "The majority of people who have been through domestic violence are not ready to struggle for themselves," Rivina says. The 30-year-old has become so well known for her activism that some visitors to Nasiliu.net will speak only with her.

Still, one of Rivina's biggest challenges is convincing the government that organizations like hers are not the enemy. "We are the ones standing for family values," she says, "by trying to make a home the safest place."
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The Women Combatting Russia's Domestic Violence Epidemic

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A s Nastya waits for her husband Kirill to come home from work, thoughts run through her head. She smooths the creases from the tablecloth and lays the table in the dimly lit kitchen of their apartment in Moscow, careful to place the knife and fork perfectly straight next to Kirill's plate.

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Inside the fight over Russia’s domestic violence law

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Inside the fight over Russia’s domestic violence law

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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-domestic-violence-law/

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Inside the fight over Russia’s domestic violence law

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Who is preventing Russia’s domestic violence legislation from going ahead - and does it have any future?

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https://asiasociety.org/education/women-modern-mongolia

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Mongol women enjoyed, or some would say endured, a vital role in the often times harsh nomadic life. In recent decades, women saw greater equality in education and the workplace. As Mongolia continues to shape its identity in the modern world, this essay examines some of the issues and opportunities facing women today.

Because women in pre-twentieth-century Mongolia assumed such vital roles in the livestock economy, a few among the elite enjoyed more rights and privileges than their counterparts in other East Asian lands. The capriciousness of the Mongol environment and the demanding lifestyle of the steppe pastoral nomads necessitated hard work and assumption of responsibilities by all household members, and women often had the heavier loads. They not only had domestic duties but also assisted in tending animals, milking sheep and goats, producing dairy products, shearing wool, and tanning hides. They could manage the herds on their own, permitting total male mobilization for hunts or warfare. Their vital economic roles translated into considerable power for a few elite women. It is no wonder that some achieved prominence beyond Mongolia. For example, the Persian historian Rashid al-Din wrote that Khubilai Khan's mother Sorghaghtani Beki was "extremely intelligent and able and towered above all the women in the world." She, together with Khubilai's wife Chabi, exerted considerable influence on the policies the Mongols pursued.

Yet ordinary Mongol women probably did not benefit from their vital roles, particularly after the Mongol empire collapsed. They returned to a life of drudgery, with limited, if any, possibilities, for leisure and education and almost no access to proper health care. Qing China's conquest of Mongolia in the late seventeenth century exacerbated women's difficulties and indeed generally pauperized the Mongol peoples.

Socialist Mongolia and Women

Even the fall of the Qing in 1911 did not lead to improvement, as chaotic conditions prevailed until 1921. In that year, Mongol nationalists, with the help of the Soviet Union, gained power and began to set up a socialist regime, which lasted for about seventy years. Attempted collectivization of the herds, dictatorial rule, purges of Buddhist monks and others considered to be dissidents, severe limitations on all forms of literary, artistic, and political expressions, and deprivation due to some economic mismanagement followed. To be sure, the period of socialist governance also witnessed gains, particularly in education, health, and social welfare.

Women often benefited from government policies, which in theory guaranteed equality in education, the workplace, and the political system. By the late 1980s, most women had entered the labor force in such sectors as trade, medicine, and education, but a "glass ceiling" frequently prevented promotion to leadership at work or in the professions. Government initiatives in modernization of health care provided medical services for women, who in fact constituted about three-quarters of the doctors by 1990. A pronatal policy from the 1960s on led to improvement in facilities for pregnant women and thus lowered infant mortality (though the government at the same time banned abortions). Maternity leave was generous, and crèches and nursery schools facilitated women's working lives. Welfare benefits, such as pensions for the elderly and subsistence payments for widows and the disabled, also assisted women because they were often responsible for these groups. Moreover, in the rural areas, women herders were eligible for pensions, a unique policy in Asia.

Opportunities for women's education and for participation in politics increased. The government initiated compulsory education for girls in both urban and rural areas, resulting in a dramatic growth in literacy and in access to higher education. Although the government's figures on literacy may have been overstated, still even the lower estimates devised by independent specialists were impressive. Herder parents strove to ensure education for their daughters so that they could avoid the hard life endured by women in a nomadic pastoral society. Success of these government policies can be gauged by the fact that, by 1990, more than forty per cent of university and technical college graduates were women. In the government itself, women registered gains. They constituted about one-quarter of the Parliament (or Khural), but none reached the most important levers of government, including Prime Minister or Foreign or Defense Minister.

Women in Post-Socialist Mongolia

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and government policies since then have generated opportunities and problems for women. The Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc had been Mongolia's virtually sole trading partners, investors, and suppliers of foreign aid. Sudden diminution of these relationships necessitated a realignment of Mongolia's economy. The government turned to such international financial organizations as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund and such aid organizations as the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development, for advice and assistance. The foreign institutions recommended changes from a planned to a market economy, which entailed privatization of State assets, elimination of government subsidies, a balanced budget, reductions in government, and austerity.

These dramatic changes have affected women. On the one hand, the socialist regime's repression has ended, leading to less fear of government purges and to greater freedom and more choice for women. A multi-party political system and more outlets for dissent have expanded their political choices. On the other hand, economic failures have fallen disproportionately on women. Rates of female unemployment and poverty have soared, and despite economic growth since 2002, the percentage of those living in abject poverty (as of this writing in late 2007) remains above thirty per cent. More women than men are unemployed, as private companies, claiming that young women either take extended leaves or simply drop out of the labor force when they become pregnant, have often been reluctant to hire females. If they do, they frequently do not offer the fringe benefits that the socialist State had previously provided. In addition, the latest United Nations Development Program report notes that "there is a wage gap in Mongolia. Women are under-represented in sectors with higher pay." Moreover, many working women spend as much as twenty-five hours a week on household chores, as they "carry a double burden with responsibilities at work and at home." Adding to these difficulties is the substantial increase in female-headed households, which is, in large part, due to male unemployment and the resulting high rate of alcoholism, crime, and domestic abuse. Faced with these difficulties, an increasing number of women have divorced unstable husbands or have opted to have children without marriage. However, female-headed households have been vulnerable and constitute a large segment of those living below the poverty line.

Government cutbacks have also hurt women. The socialist State's support for pastoral nomads (construction of wells, supplying of trucks to bring animals and animal products to market, provision of veterinarians, etc.) have eroded, causing many families to abandon herding and to migrate to the capital where most, with scant economic prospects, live in abject poverty. The social safety net (special care for pregnant women, subsidies for food, energy, and housing, stable pensions, provision of crèches, etc.) has withered away. Health facilities have deteriorated, with State reductions in funding to hospitals for medicines, equipment, and supplies, in support for feldshers in the countryside, and in proper pay for public service doctors and nurses. These social problems have inevitably led to a rise in prostitution, trafficking of women, and street children of both sexes.

One encouraging trend is the recognition of the serious problems facing Mongol women. Educated women have banded together to form non-governmental organizations to criminalize domestic abuse, to improve conditions for women in the labor force, to conduct research on employment, prostitution, child labor, and inequalities in wages for women. One such organization concluded that "there is a clear need for government policies and schemes to improve the position of women in the labor force..." Foreign agencies, such as the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank, have experimented with provision of micro-credit for women seeking to increase their incomes and have issued reports on gender gaps in employment and sexual harassment in the workplace.

An important change in the government has been the first appointment of women to significant positions in the Cabinet. Since 1999, two women have filled the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Finally, education favors women in future. More than seventy per cent of students in higher education are women, offering hope for their rise to managerial positions in the economy, health, education, and government and to attempts to address the problems faced by Mongol women.

Footnotes

1 John A. Boyle, trans., The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 168.

2 United Nations Development Program, Mongolia Human Development Report 2007: Employment and Poverty in Mongolia: Executive Summary (Ulaanbaatar, 2007), pp. 26, 28.

3 Liberal Women's Brain Pool, Women's Empowerment and Development (Ulaanbaatar, 1998), p. 49. On one of the women's non-governmental organizations and its activities, see Mones: Mongolian Women's Fund, Annual Report 2006 (Ulaanbaatar, 2007).

4 For additional detail and bibliography, see Morris Rossabi, Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 150-160.

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Mongol women enjoyed, or some would say endured, a vital role in the often times harsh nomadic life. In recent decades, women saw greater equality in education and the workplace. As Mongolia continues to shape its identity in the modern world, this essay examines some of the issues and opportunities facing women today.

Because women in pre-twentieth-century Mongolia assumed such vital roles in the livestock economy, a few among the elite enjoyed more rights and privileges than their counterparts in other East Asian lands. The capriciousness of the Mongol environment and the demanding lifestyle of the steppe pastoral nomads necessitated hard work and assumption of responsibilities by all household members, and women often had the heavier loads. They not only had domestic duties but also assisted in tending animals, milking sheep and goats, producing dairy products, shearing wool, and tanning hides. They could manage the herds on their own, permitting total male mobilization for hunts or warfare. Their vital economic roles translated into considerable power for a few elite women. It is no wonder that some achieved prominence beyond Mongolia. For example, the Persian historian Rashid al-Din wrote that Khubilai Khan's mother Sorghaghtani Beki was "extremely intelligent and able and towered above all the women in the world." She, together with Khubilai's wife Chabi, exerted considerable influence on the policies the Mongols pursued.

Yet ordinary Mongol women probably did not benefit from their vital roles, particularly after the Mongol empire collapsed. They returned to a life of drudgery, with limited, if any, possibilities, for leisure and education and almost no access to proper health care. Qing China's conquest of Mongolia in the late seventeenth century exacerbated women's difficulties and indeed generally pauperized the Mongol peoples.

Socialist Mongolia and Women

Even the fall of the Qing in 1911 did not lead to improvement, as chaotic conditions prevailed until 1921. In that year, Mongol nationalists, with the help of the Soviet Union, gained power and began to set up a socialist regime, which lasted for about seventy years. Attempted collectivization of the herds, dictatorial rule, purges of Buddhist monks and others considered to be dissidents, severe limitations on all forms of literary, artistic, and political expressions, and deprivation due to some economic mismanagement followed. To be sure, the period of socialist governance also witnessed gains, particularly in education, health, and social welfare.

Women often benefited from government policies, which in theory guaranteed equality in education, the workplace, and the political system. By the late 1980s, most women had entered the labor force in such sectors as trade, medicine, and education, but a "glass ceiling" frequently prevented promotion to leadership at work or in the professions. Government initiatives in modernization of health care provided medical services for women, who in fact constituted about three-quarters of the doctors by 1990. A pronatal policy from the 1960s on led to improvement in facilities for pregnant women and thus lowered infant mortality (though the government at the same time banned abortions). Maternity leave was generous, and crèches and nursery schools facilitated women's working lives. Welfare benefits, such as pensions for the elderly and subsistence payments for widows and the disabled, also assisted women because they were often responsible for these groups. Moreover, in the rural areas, women herders were eligible for pensions, a unique policy in Asia.

Opportunities for women's education and for participation in politics increased. The government initiated compulsory education for girls in both urban and rural areas, resulting in a dramatic growth in literacy and in access to higher education. Although the government's figures on literacy may have been overstated, still even the lower estimates devised by independent specialists were impressive. Herder parents strove to ensure education for their daughters so that they could avoid the hard life endured by women in a nomadic pastoral society. Success of these government policies can be gauged by the fact that, by 1990, more than forty per cent of university and technical college graduates were women. In the government itself, women registered gains. They constituted about one-quarter of the Parliament (or Khural), but none reached the most important levers of government, including Prime Minister or Foreign or Defense Minister.

Women in Post-Socialist Mongolia

The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and government policies since then have generated opportunities and problems for women. The Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc had been Mongolia's virtually sole trading partners, investors, and suppliers of foreign aid. Sudden diminution of these relationships necessitated a realignment of Mongolia's economy. The government turned to such international financial organizations as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund and such aid organizations as the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development, for advice and assistance. The foreign institutions recommended changes from a planned to a market economy, which entailed privatization of State assets, elimination of government subsidies, a balanced budget, reductions in government, and austerity.

These dramatic changes have affected women. On the one hand, the socialist regime's repression has ended, leading to less fear of government purges and to greater freedom and more choice for women. A multi-party political system and more outlets for dissent have expanded their political choices. On the other hand, economic failures have fallen disproportionately on women. Rates of female unemployment and poverty have soared, and despite economic growth since 2002, the percentage of those living in abject poverty (as of this writing in late 2007) remains above thirty per cent. More women than men are unemployed, as private companies, claiming that young women either take extended leaves or simply drop out of the labor force when they become pregnant, have often been reluctant to hire females. If they do, they frequently do not offer the fringe benefits that the socialist State had previously provided. In addition, the latest United Nations Development Program report notes that "there is a wage gap in Mongolia. Women are under-represented in sectors with higher pay." Moreover, many working women spend as much as twenty-five hours a week on household chores, as they "carry a double burden with responsibilities at work and at home." Adding to these difficulties is the substantial increase in female-headed households, which is, in large part, due to male unemployment and the resulting high rate of alcoholism, crime, and domestic abuse. Faced with these difficulties, an increasing number of women have divorced unstable husbands or have opted to have children without marriage. However, female-headed households have been vulnerable and constitute a large segment of those living below the poverty line.

Government cutbacks have also hurt women. The socialist State's support for pastoral nomads (construction of wells, supplying of trucks to bring animals and animal products to market, provision of veterinarians, etc.) have eroded, causing many families to abandon herding and to migrate to the capital where most, with scant economic prospects, live in abject poverty. The social safety net (special care for pregnant women, subsidies for food, energy, and housing, stable pensions, provision of crèches, etc.) has withered away. Health facilities have deteriorated, with State reductions in funding to hospitals for medicines, equipment, and supplies, in support for feldshers in the countryside, and in proper pay for public service doctors and nurses. These social problems have inevitably led to a rise in prostitution, trafficking of women, and street children of both sexes.

One encouraging trend is the recognition of the serious problems facing Mongol women. Educated women have banded together to form non-governmental organizations to criminalize domestic abuse, to improve conditions for women in the labor force, to conduct research on employment, prostitution, child labor, and inequalities in wages for women. One such organization concluded that "there is a clear need for government policies and schemes to improve the position of women in the labor force..." Foreign agencies, such as the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank, have experimented with provision of micro-credit for women seeking to increase their incomes and have issued reports on gender gaps in employment and sexual harassment in the workplace.

An important change in the government has been the first appointment of women to significant positions in the Cabinet. Since 1999, two women have filled the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Finally, education favors women in future. More than seventy per cent of students in higher education are women, offering hope for their rise to managerial positions in the economy, health, education, and government and to attempts to address the problems faced by Mongol women.

Footnotes

1 John A. Boyle, trans., The Successors of Genghis Khan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 168.

2 United Nations Development Program, Mongolia Human Development Report 2007: Employment and Poverty in Mongolia: Executive Summary (Ulaanbaatar, 2007), pp. 26, 28.

3 Liberal Women's Brain Pool, Women's Empowerment and Development (Ulaanbaatar, 1998), p. 49. On one of the women's non-governmental organizations and its activities, see Mones: Mongolian Women's Fund, Annual Report 2006 (Ulaanbaatar, 2007).

4 For additional detail and bibliography, see Morris Rossabi, Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 150-160.

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Mongol women enjoyed, or some would say endured, a vital role in the often times harsh nomadic life. In recent decades, women saw greater equality in education and the workplace. As Mongolia continues to shape its identity in the modern world, this essay examines some of the issues and opportunities facing women today.

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Blog: The hidden front of Ukrainian educators during the war

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https://eca.unwomen.org/en/stories/feature-story/2023/02/blog-the-hidden-front-of-ukrainian-educators-during-the-war

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Blog: The hidden front of Ukrainian educators during the war

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Kyrgyzstan: Zere returns with new plea for action on women’s rights

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https://eurasianet.org/kyrgyzstan-zere-returns-with-new-plea-for-action-on-womens-rights

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Feminist song draws supporters and death threats in Kyrgyzstan

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https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-from-flower-power-to-girl-power

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/features/show/12842/tik-tok-pro-choice-poland

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How TikTok is helping Poland’s pro-choice campaigners engage a new generation

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivlRPb75-VU

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https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195148909.001.0001/acref-9780195148909-e-1193;jsessionid=E54BEF59151F072F3A13F5529281FA9E

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 12 May 2023

In November 1918, a year after the October Revolution, Bolshevik women leaders, including Inessa Armand, Alexandra Kollontai, and Nadezhda Krupskaia... ...

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

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Manizha - Russian Woman (Tajikistan/Russia)

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Manizha - Russian Woman (Tajikistan/Russia)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01wa2ChX64

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https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm

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https://www.wilsoncenter.org/xplainer/domestic-violence-russia

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Yurtaev, Alexey. "Inside the fight over Russia's domestic violence law" Open Democracy. 17 February 2020. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-domestic-violence-law/

Галанина, Ангелина, Валерия Мишина. "Россияне готовы поднять руку на домашнее насилие." Коммерсантъ. 6 April 2020. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4315730

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Kennan Xplainer: Domestic Violence Legislation in Russia

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Poland: Women's rights defenders fighting a broken justice

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Poland: Women's rights defenders fighting a broken justice

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Poland: Women’s rights defenders fighting a broken justice | IPPF Europe & Central Asia

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The right to a fair trial is no longer guaranteed in Poland, say the activists protesting strict abortion laws.

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Poland: A Year On, Abortion Ruling Harms Women

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Poland: A Year On, Abortion Ruling Harms Women

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https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/10/poland-a-year-on-abortion-ruling-harms-women/

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Anniversary Marks Ongoing Assault on Women's Rights, Rule of Law

Women, girls, and all pregnant people have faced extreme barriers to accessing legal abortions in the year since a Constitutional Tribunal ruling virtually banned legal abortion in Poland, 14 human rights organizations said today. Since the ruling, women human rights defenders have also faced an increasingly hostile and dangerous environment. Poland's authorities should end efforts to undermine reproductive rights and weaken protections from gender-based violence. They should commit to protecting women human rights defenders who have faced ongoing threats and attacks since the October 2020 decision. Escalating death threats since October 9 against Marta Lempart, co-founder of Ognopolski Strajk Kobiet (All-Poland Women's Strike) and a target of repeated threats for leading demonstrations supporting legal abortion and women's rights, led to her police protection during public appearances."The Constitutional Tribunal ruling is causing incalculable harm to women and girls - especially those who are poor, live in rural areas, or are marginalized," said Urszula Grycuk, international advocacy coordinator at the Federation for Women and Family Planning (Federa) in Poland. "The dignity, freedom and health of pregnant people are compromised because their own government is denying them access to essential reproductive health care."The organizations are Abortion Support Network, Amnesty International, the Center for Reproductive Rights, CIVICUS, Federa, FOKUS, Human Rights Watch, International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), International Planned Parenthood Federation-European Network, MSI Reproductive Choices, Le Planning Familial, Riksförbundet för sexuell upplysning/The Swedish Association for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, and Strajk Kobiet/Women's Strike.

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal, whose independence and legitimacy is profoundly eroded, is widely acknowledged as politically compromised. On October 22, 2020, it ruled that abortion on grounds of "severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus' life" was unconstitutional. The government brought the case to the tribunal after parliament failed to adopt legislation with the same effect. The ruling came into force on January 27, 2021.

This eliminated one of the few legal grounds for abortion under Poland's highly restrictive law. Previously, over 90 percent of the approximately 1,000 legal abortions annually in Poland were on these grounds. The ruling came as Covid-19 pandemic restrictions made travel for health care prohibitively difficult and costly. The ruling spurred the country's largest public protests in decades, led by women human rights defenders. Activists and women's rights groups reported that the ruling had a significant chilling effect as people seeking abortions and medical professionals feared repercussions. Abortion Without Borders, which aids women in European countries where abortion is illegal or access is highly restricted, reported that 17,000 women in Poland contacted them in the six months after the ruling for help accessing abortion, and that they continue to receive about 800 calls a month.

Federa, a Polish reproductive health and rights organization, reported conducting approximately 8,100 consultations in the 11 months after the ruling, 3 times as many as during the same period in previous years. This included calls to its helpline and over 5,000 emails concerning access to abortion and other sexual and reproductive health services.

Since the Law and Justice party came to power in 2015, Poland's government has repeatedly moved to further curb sexual and reproductive health and rights, including by supporting a 2016 draft bill for a total abortion ban that parliament rejected following mass public protest. The government also supported a draft bill, introduced by an ultra-conservative group, to essentially criminalize comprehensive sexuality education. The bill has been in committee since April 2020. These bills are "civic initiatives," which require public signatures to be considered.

In September 2021, the same group introduced a new civic initiative "Stop Abortion" bill to parliament. It would consider abortion at any stage a homicide and would bring criminal penalties against women who have abortions, and anyone who assists them, with punishment of up to 25 years in prison. The bill is backed by Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, an ultra-conservative, anti-choice, and anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) group.

Women's rights organizations and parliament members of the opposition Lewica party are collecting signatures for a civic initiative bill, "Legal Abortion Without Compromise," which would permit abortion without restriction as to reason up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. It would permit abortion after 12 weeks in cases of risk to the person's mental or physical health, a non-viable pregnancy, or pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.

Evidence consistently demonstrates that laws restricting or criminalizing abortion do not eliminate it, but rather drive people to seek abortion through means that may put their mental and physical health at risk and diminish their autonomy and dignity. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has said that as part of the obligation to protect the right to life of pregnant people, states should not apply criminal sanctions against anyone undergoing abortion or medical service providers assisting them.

In July, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) announced that it will address complaints from Polish women who may be victims of violations of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms due to the Constitutional Tribunal's abortion ruling. Poland's government has failed to effectively implement previous ECtHR judgments concerning access to lawful abortion despite repeated calls and a March judgment by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

The Law and Justice government has also targeted women's rights organizations and activists. Activists said that government rhetoric and media campaigns smearing them and their work foster misinformation and hate that can put their safety at risk. Several women's rights defenders were detained or face what they describe as politically motivated criminal charges for actions during protests following the Constitutional Tribunal's abortion ruling. Activists received multiple bomb and death threats in February and March for their support of reproductive rights but said that, in many cases, police minimized the security risks and either did not open investigations or failed to pursue them effectively. No one has been held accountable for these threats. Police launched investigations and arrested one man in connection with online death threats to Lempart ahead of her planned appearance at a protest on October 11, and are now providing her protection at public events.

The government has undermined efforts to combat gender-based violence, including by initiating Poland's withdrawal from a landmark European convention on violence against women, the Istanbul Convention. The government referred the convention to the politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal for review due to its definition of "gender." Campaigns against gender equality have been used to target women's and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex rights and those who support them.

"Extreme restrictions on abortion are part of a broader assault by Poland's government on human rights, including women's rights and LGBTI rights, and the rule of law," said Marta Lempart, co-founder of Strajk Kobiet. "It should alarm all Europeans that this is happening in their own backyard, even as European governments claim to be leaders on women's rights and democratic values."

The anti-abortion ruling's anniversary comes amid increasing tensions between Poland's government and the European Union after an October 7 Constitutional Tribunal ruling rejecting the binding nature of EU law. It followed a series of EU Court of Justice rulings that the Polish government's weakening of judicial independence breaches EU law. The European Commission said it "will not hesitate to make use of its powers" under EU treaties to ensure application of EU law and protect people's rights.

Poland's government should reverse restrictions on reproductive rights and ensure that these rights are upheld in accordance with international law, including the right to access safe abortion. It should cease attacks on women's rights and women human rights defenders and end moves to undermine the rule of law, democracy, and human rights.

The European Commission and EU member states should urgently address rule of law breaches and their impact on women's human rights, including reproductive rights, in Poland. The European Commission should trigger legal infringement proceedings for Polish authorities' use of a politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal to erode the rights of people in Poland and undermine democratic checks and balances, in blatant violation of the EU Treaties.

The Commission and EU member states should act to protect and support women's rights defenders and organizations in Poland. Member states should actively support people in Poland seeking access to abortion.

The Commission should urgently implement the mechanism tying access to EU funds to respect for EU values and continue its commitment to tie EU Recovery Funds to rule of law guarantees. EU member states should advance and expand scrutiny under Article 7.1 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) by adopting specific recommendations or voting to determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach of EU values in Poland, as has been called for also by European Parliament.

"Despite fear and repercussions, people in Poland are fighting every day to protect rights that everyone in the EU should be able to exercise freely, including access to safe abortion," said Hillary Margolis, senior women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Women's rights are on a precipice in Poland, and unless the European Commission and Council act to defend democratic values, more and more women and girls will suffer the consequences."

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Poland, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/poland

For more information, please contact:
For Human Rights Watch, in London, Hillary Margolis (English): +1-917-385-4107 (US mobile) or +44 (0)7733-486-524 (UK mobile); or [email protected] . Twitter: @hillarymargo
For Human Rights Watch, in Brussels, Philippe Dam: (French, English): +32-495-45-22-71 (mobile); or [email protected] . Twitter: @philippe_dam
For Human Rights Watch, in Budapest, Lydia Gall (English, Swedish, Hungarian): +36-702-748-328 (mobile); or [email protected] . Twitter: @LydsG
For Abortion Support Network (part of Abortion Without Borders), in London, Mara Clarke (English): +44 (0) 7913-353-530; or [email protected]
For Amnesty International, Alison Abrahams: +32-483-680-812 or +44-20-7413-5566; or [email protected] ; or [email protected] . Twitter: @amnestypress
For the Center for Reproductive Rights, in New York, Geraldine Henrich-Koenis (English): +1-703-314-1137; or [email protected] . Twitter: @ReproRights
For CIVICUS, in Johannesburg,Aarti Narsee: [email protected] ; or [email protected] . Twitter @ajnarsee
For FIDH, in Brussels, Elena Crespi (English, French, Italian, Spanish): +32-484-875-964. Twitter: @ecrespi_fidh
For FIDH, in Paris: Marc de Boni (French, English): +33-6-722-842-94. Twitter: @MarcdeBoni
For Federa, in Warsaw, Urszula Grycuk (Polish, English): [email protected] .
For International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network, in Brussels, Irene Donadio (English, Italian): +32-491-071-93-90; or [email protected] . Twitter: @ippfen
For the Polish Women's Strike, in Warsaw, Anna Styrańczak: +48-881-718-904; or [email protected] .

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Poland: A Year On, Abortion Ruling Harms Women

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Anniversary Marks Ongoing Assault on Women's Rights, Rule of Law Women, girls, and all pregnant people have faced extreme barriers to accessing legal abortions in the year since a Constitutional Tribunal ruling virtually banned legal abortion in Poland, 14 human rights organizations said today.

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Poland: Rule of Law Erosion Harms Women, LGBT People

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Poland: Rule of Law Erosion Harms Women, LGBT People

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https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/15/poland-rule-law-erosion-harms-women-lgbt-people

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(Budapest) - The Polish government's ongoing attacks on the rule of law are harming the rights of women and LGBT people and require stronger action from the European Union, Human Rights Watch said today.

Since the Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in Poland in 2015, the government has persistently attacked the rights of women and LGBT people in the context of its broader attacks on the rule of law. The government has deliberately undermined the independence of the judiciary and media freedom and sought to silence independent civil society groups, activists, and those who protest against its policies, including through the courts.

"The rule of law crisis in Poland undermines democratic institutions, seriously damaging protections for people's rights, including women and LGBT people," said Lydia Gall, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The European Union needs to get serious about its responsibility to the people of Poland and step up its efforts to arrest the Polish government's devastating rule of law crackdown."

Since 2020, ongoing Human Rights Watch research shows the harmful consequences of the government's undermining of the rule of law in Poland, and how the political hijacking of courts and use of the justice system to impede civil society have undermined the rights of women, girls, and LGBT people. Human Rights Watch had not received any response to its letters to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior in November 2022 setting out our concerns and seeking comment.

Human Rights Watch interviewed four LGBT activists and organizations, and eleven representatives of women's rights organizations in Poland as well as six LGBT people who have personally experienced the harmful effects of the government-led anti-LGBT campaign.

Hostile attitudes toward LGBT people found full expression in 2019 when regions and municipalities began to declare themselves "LGBT Ideology Free" or joined a government-supported Family Charter, calling for the exclusion of LGBT people from Polish society. More than 90 regional and municipal authorities have now declared themselves "LGBT ideology free" or signed the charter.

Even though Poland's law on abortion was already among the most restrictive in Europe, the government used a politically compromised court in October 2020 to effectively ban access to legal abortions, forcing many women and girls to go abroad to terminate pregnancies.

In October, the group Abortion Without Borders reported that between October 2021 and October 2022, requests for help from women and girls in Poland accessing abortion skyrocketed. Activists described the initial devastation and desperation of women and girls who said they might now be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Activists in many cases managed to assist women terminating their pregnancies, often under difficult circumstances, including to travel abroad.

At least five women are known to have died after doctors did not terminate their pregnancies despite complications that put their health and lives at risk.

In the first known prosecution in Europe of an abortion activist for providing pills for medication abortion, prosecutors have charged Justyna Wydrzyńska of the Abortion Dream Team with assisting someone to have an abortion and illegally "marketing" medication without authorization. Hearings in her case have been postponed to January 2023.

Since Law and Justice came into power in Poland, LGBT activists have faced pressure and interference from the authorities over their peaceful activism, including arrests and criminal prosecutions, some under blasphemy laws. LGBT activists also reported the use by local authorities of what is known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation ("SLAPP") lawsuits to interfere with, and silence their work.

In addition to undermining the independent functioning of civil society, a clear rule of law violation, these measures have helped contribute to a hostile climate for LGBT people and activism in Poland.

Bart Staszewski, a leading Polish LGBT activist, told Human Rights Watch in June 2021 that he repeatedly reported threats against him, including death threats, to the police but that no serious steps had been taken to investigate. The threats followed the "Atlas of Hate" campaign, founded by other activists, that included an interactive map delineating the LGBT Ideology Free zones in Poland, and a related photo project called "Zones" that Staszewski undertook.

The misuse of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal to further the government's political agenda at the expense of rights has not stopped with the abortion ban, Human Rights Watch said. The government asked the tribunal in 2020 and 2021 to rule on whether the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects rights in Council of Europe member states, are compatible with the Polish constitution, in an effort to justify withdrawing from the former and ignoring binding rulings from the latter. The tribunal in March ruled the ECHR partially incompatible with the Polish constitution.

EU institutions have a duty to hold Poland to account for its dismal rule of law record that has harmed the lives of women, girls, and LGBT people, Human Rights Watch said. Poland should ensure access to safe and legal abortion, and cease attacks on and prosecutions of LGBT and women's rights activists.

The European Parliament has spoken out against Poland's decision to ban abortion and its announcement to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention. The Commission put funds on hold in September 2021 to five regions unless they abandoned anti-LGBT declarations, which resulted in four regions abandoning the declarations. In July 2021, the Commission took the first step of a legal infringement procedure against Poland because of the impact of the so-called 'LGBT-ideology free zones' resolutions. However, the EU Commission and EU member states have failed to address the implications of rule of law backsliding on women's rights. European Commissioner for Equality criticised the Constitutional Tribunal ruling on abortion in November 2021 but said the EU had no authority to act on reproductive rights.

The EU Commission should trigger infringement proceedings or expand existing infringements to address the erosion of the rule of law that put women's rights and the rights of LGBT people at risk. It should also issue an update to the December 2017 Reasoned Proposal, which initiated scrutiny under the Article 7 procedure, the EU-treaty-based mechanism dealing with EU states that put democratic ideals at risk, to extend EU scrutiny to developments since December 2017, including the use of a compromised Constitutional Tribunal to undermine women's rights and laws and policies that undermine EU values such as nondiscrimination and tolerance.

European Commissioners should publicly condemn attacks on and judicial harassment against women's rights and LGBT rights activists and organizations in Poland and the government's support for or failure to denounce such attacks as violations of the EU values linked to undermining the rule of law.

The EU Council should move its scrutiny forward under Article 7 over the risk the Polish government's actions pose to EU values, by adopting specific rule-of-law recommendations and holding a vote to determine there is a clear risk of a serious breach of EU values in Poland. Sweden, which will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU starting in January 2023 for six months, should lead those efforts.

"EU institutions should move the Article 7 process forward and use its legal enforcement powers to protect the rights of the people affected by Poland's attack on the rule of law," Gall said. "In an EU member state in 2022, women shouldn't have to face being denied abortion, LGBT people shouldn't face hostility for who they are, and neither should risk punishment when they stand up for their rights."
For more details on the impact of the rule of law crisis in Poland on people's rights, see below. The Impact of Poland's Rule of Law Erosion on LGBT People and Activists
'LGBT-Ideology Free' Zones

The rights of LGBT people in Poland have come under increasing pressure since the Law and Justice party came into power. The authorities in more than 90 traditionally conservative regions and municipalities have declared themselves "LGBT Ideology Free" areas or signed the Family Charter since 2019.

The charter's self-proclaimed purpose is to promote traditional family values and protect children against immorality. The charter indirectly denies the rights of same-sex couples by explicit references to marriage being a union between a man and woman, as well as parenthood being a shared responsibility between a man and woman.

Activists and LGBT people told Human Rights Watch that the creation of the LGBT-ideology free zones has had a chilling effect on LGBT people living in them. A December 2021 Council of Europe Parliament Assembly report on combating rising hate against LGBTI people in Europe concluded that the zones "deny LGBTI people's right to exist and deprive them of a safe space."

These declarations have drawn criticism from the European Commission. However, high-ranking public officials in Poland, including the PiS ruling party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, have endorsed and promoted the declarations and their exclusionary and discriminatory language towards LGBT people. Activists said that the Education and Science Ministry has sent letters of support to regions or cities adopting resolutions against "LGBT ideology."

Under the resolutions and charter, regional and local governments should refrain from encouraging tolerance toward LGBT people and cut funds to organizations promoting nondiscrimination and gender equality.

While they are legally unenforceable, LGBT activists told Human Rights Watch that the "LGBT Ideology Free" zones are attempts to stigmatize, exclude, and indirectly discriminate against members of the LGBT community, sending the message that LGBT people are not welcome in these areas.

Civil society plays a vital role in a democratic society in holding the authorities to account. Yet in Poland, LGBT activists have been arrested and prosecuted in an effort to silence them and their activism. In August 2020, an LGBT activist, Malgorzata Szutowicz, known as "Margot," was arrested and charged for damaging a truck spewing false anti-LGBT propaganda. The same month, activists were arrested followed a campaign of placing rainbow flags on prominent public monuments.

A blasphemy law has been used under the current government to arrest and prosecute LGBT activists. On Twitter on August 5, 2020, the Warsaw police confirmed they had arrested three people for "insulting religious feelings and insulting Warsaw monuments" under the blasphemy law. While the three LGBT activists arrested in August 2020 were acquitted by a court in March 2021, another activist was in February 2021 under the blasphemy law for posting an image of a foot stamping on the Virgin Mary. An October 2022 bill, supported by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, proposes sentences of up to two years in prison for anyone who "publicly insults or ridicules the church." LGBT activists also complain of increasing use of "SLAPP" civil lawsuits by local authorities, to deter activists from speaking out about the government's and authorities' anti-LGBT policies.

By publicly supporting anti-LGBT measures adopted by regional and local authorities and at the same time clamping down on LGBT activists speaking out about the hostile climate the measures are helping to foster, the government is failing in its responsibility to protect LGBT people in Poland from discrimination, Human Rights Watch said.

The EU Commission responded to the anti-LGBT developments in Poland in June 2020 by threatening to withhold funds to five regions in Poland unless they abandoned their anti-LGBT declarations. In March 2021, the European Parliament declared the EU an LGBTQI Freedom zone. In July 2021, the European Commission decided to initiate the first stage of a legal infringement procedure against Poland over the failure by Polish authorities to respond to the Commission's concerns about the zones. As a result of EU action, four regions have revoked anti-LGBT declarations for fear of losing EU funds. The infringement procedure is pending, and the European Commission has not yet brought it to the European Court of Justice.

The EU Commission should also press Poland's government to end arrests and prosecutions of LGBT activists exercising their freedom of expression, as guaranteed both under Polish and EU law.
The Impact of Poland's Rule of Law Erosion on Reproductive Rights
Since 2015, the Polish government has made aggressive efforts to further restrict women's reproductive rights and the work of women's rights organizations, at times misusing and undermining democratic institutions to do so.

The cornerstone of the government's assault on women's reproductive rights has been its effort to ban legal abortion. An October 2020 ruling by the politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal invalidated the constitutionality of access to abortion on grounds of "severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus' life," one of only three circumstances in which abortion was legal under Poland's highly restrictive Family Planning Act of 1993. The ruling entered into force on January 27, 2021, resulting in a near-total ban on legal abortion in Poland.

The only two remaining legal exceptions are in cases of pregnancy resulting from a criminal act, such as rape or incest, or where it poses a threat to a pregnant person's life or health. In practice, though, multiple barriers prevent even those eligible for a legal abortion from obtaining one, including conscientious objection by medical professionals, lack of information, and the need for prosecutors to "confirm" a rape or other criminal act resulting in pregnancy.

The Constitutional Tribunal ruling is a retrogressive measure that rolls back the right to abortion and violates the rights to life, health, bodily autonomy, nondiscrimination, and freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, among others. Expert bodies including the United Nations experts on discrimination against women and on the right to health and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics have stated that abortion is essential health care.

In addition, the ruling's legitimacy is problematic for two reasons. First, the court itself is compromised as a result of political interference in judicial appointments to the court, with several of its judges loyal to the ruling party appointed through flawed procedures. In the abortion ruling, rather than operating independently, the tribunal was acting at the behest of the government to deliver a legal outcome the democratically elected parliament had declined to approve.

Second, rather than observing typical parliamentary procedure, the government turned to the court to introduce a near-total ban only after it had tried and failed in 2016 and 2019 to pass similar legislation triggered by citizen initiatives led by a government-allied faith group, and in the face of mass public protests against the law.

The Constitutional Tribunal ruling has had devastating effects on women and girls in Poland, including at least five women who are known to have died after doctors did not terminate pregnancies despite complications that potentially posed risks to the woman's lives or health. It may also result in women and girls being forced to carry pregnancies to term, even in cases in which the pregnancy was not viable. Some women have said the ruling is affecting their or their daughters' reproductive lives and choices, noting that they no longer want to become pregnant in Poland out of fear that they will not be able to get the necessary health care, particularly if they need an abortion.

According to data by Abortion Without Borders, from October 2021 to October 2022, the network had helped 44,000 women accessing abortion, which is 10,000 more than the previous year. Prior to the 2020 ruling, the figure was 6,000.

Prior to the October 2020 ruling, Poland already had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the European Union. Official statistics show that about 1,000 legal abortions were performed in Poland each year before the October 2020 ruling, over 90 percent of them on grounds of "severe or irreversible fetal defects or incurable illnesses that threaten the fetus' life."

However, women's rights groups estimate that between 80,000 to 120,000 abortions actually took place each year, in some cases with the aid of medications that women acquire from abroad through women's rights groups and networks. Having to travel or acquire medication from abroad to terminate pregnancies is not a substitute for effective access to reproductive and sexual health care and may increase women's pain and suffering, Human Rights Watch said.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2007, 2011, and 2012 ruled against Poland and its restrictive laws and policies around abortion and reproductive rights in, R.R. v. Poland, P. and S. v. Poland, and Tysiąc v. Poland. Poland has failed to effectively carry out these decisions, all of which found Poland in violation of the European convention with respect to women's reproductive rights. Since the Constitutional tribunal ruling came into force in January 2021, over 1,000 women have turned to the European Court in an effort to vindicate their rights, challenging Poland's highly restrictive abortion law and seeking justice supported by civil society groups including Human Rights Watch.

As with LGBT activism, the response of the government has been to seek to silence civil society groups and individuals that speak out on these issues.

Women's rights activists face prosecution for speaking out against the tribunal decision and its impact on women's and girl's reproductive rights. Marta Lempart, a co-founder of All-Poland Women's Strike (Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet, OSK), told Human Rights Watch in November 2022 that in February 2021, she was criminally charged for insulting a police officer, posing an "epidemiological threat" by breaching Covid restrictions, and praising vandalism of churches due to favorable comments she made in a radio interview regarding protesters who had spray painted church facades and disrupted masses.

Lempart also said that she has more than 90 lawsuits pending against her for her activism. She described them as "politically motivated." Women's rights activists have also faced SLAPP lawsuits brought by officials aimed at silencing their work.

While people who get an abortion cannot be criminally prosecuted under the law, a person who assists someone to get an abortion can. Justyna Wydrzynska, an abortion rights activist and co-founder of Abortion Dream Team , faces up to three years in prison on charges of assisting someone to have an abortion and illegally "marketing" medication without authorization, for assisting a woman in obtaining medical abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy. This is the first known case of its kind in the EU. Her case is pending.

In November, Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, a member of the Polish parliament, was charged with "offending religious feelings and "malicious interference with worship," each offense carrying a penalty of up to two years in prison. Scheuring-Wielgus had participated in a peaceful protest in October by carrying a banner in Torun church reading "Woman, you can decide for yourself."

The response of key EU institutions to the impacts of Poland's undermining the rule of law on women's and girls' reproductive rights has been muted, as the Commission has been reluctant to view such rights violations are part of the broader breakdown of rule of law in Poland. The Commission should trigger new or expand existing infringement proceedings when such rule of law breaches lead to violations of women's reproductive rights and to arrests and prosecutions of women's and abortion rights activists. The Commission should also press Warsaw to implement all outstanding European Court of Human Rights rulings that relate to rule of law or reproductive rights.

Member states within the EU Council and other EU institutions should consider the impact of the rule of law on reproductive rights when they assess Poland's compliance with the rule of law including in the context of the Article 7 procedure.
Undermining International Commitments Needed To Protect Rights
The Polish government's misuse of the politically compromised Constitutional Tribunal to undermine the rule of law and human rights protections has not been confined to reproductive rights.

In July 2020, Justice Minister Ziobro announced that he would move forward with Poland's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention. The move sent a clear message about its disregard for women victims of violence. Poland had signed the Convention in 2012 and ratified it in 2015.

The government justified its intention to withdraw from the Convention because it claims the treaty promotes a "leftist political agenda and its definition of gender as socially constructed roles is a problem." The same month, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that he had "decided to ask the Constitutional Tribunal to examine whether the Istanbul Convention is in line with the Polish constitution." The case is pending.

The government asked the Constitutional Tribunal in November 2021 to assess whether the European Convention on Human Rights is compatible with the Polish constitution, a move that appears linked to adverse rulings against Poland by the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the Convention. In March, the tribunal ruled the ECHR partially incompatible with the Polish constitution.

The European Commission has triggered an infringement proceeding following the Constitutional Tribunal rulings which found the provisions of the EU Treaties incompatible with the Polish Constitution, considering that "the Constitutional Tribunal no longer meets the requirement of an independent and impartial tribunal."

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Poland: Rule of Law Erosion Harms Women, LGBT People

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The Polish government's ongoing attacks on the rule of law are harming the rights of women and LGBT people and require stronger action from the European Union. The government has deliberately undermined the independence of the judiciary and media freedom and sought to silence independent civil society groups, activists, and those who protest against its policies, including through the courts.

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‘Polszczyzna’ & the Revolutionary Feminine Suffix

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‘Polszczyzna’ & the Revolutionary Feminine Suffix

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https://culture.pl/en/article/polszczyzna-and-the-revolutionary-feminine-suffix

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'Polszczyzna' & the Revolutionary Feminine Suffix

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As Polish women made their way into universities, fought for their right to vote and even learned how to drive tractors, Polish linguists grappled with the question of the 'feminine suffix'. But has the language ever really caught up to the reality?

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Saying No to Children, Kitchen, Church: The Pioneers of Women’s Rights in Poland

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Saying No to Children, Kitchen, Church: The Pioneers of Women’s Rights in Poland

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https://culture.pl/en/article/saying-no-to-children-kitchen-church-the-pioneers-of-womens-rights-in-poland

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Saying No to Children, Kitchen, Church: The Pioneers of Women's Rights in Poland

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Countless Polish heroines have fought against 'women being sacrificed to the mercy of pots and brooms'. But the struggles of even the earliest feminists remain unfinished: many of their demands have yet to be fulfilled today.

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/poland

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/romania

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/russian-federation

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/serbia

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/slovakia

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/slovenia

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Corporate & National Flags | Digital Printed in NZ | Flags Group

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Flags Group is the most experienced flag manufacturers in New Zealand. Over 35 years in wind powered signage. We manufacture all types of flags. Buy online.

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/tajikistan

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/turkmenistan

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/ukraine

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The Bra-Absent Activists Who Stunned Scholz – Who are FEMEN?

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The Bra-Absent Activists Who Stunned Scholz – Who are FEMEN?

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https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6733

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Get the Latest Ukraine News Today - KyivPost

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International protest group FEMEN turned its unique style of topless activism on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the weekend, in opposition to the country's slow response to eliminating dependency on Russian gas. But who exactly are FEMEN, and what do they hope to achieve?
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz had only been in office for little over two months. But he quickly attracted criticism for an apparently cautious approach to reducing his country's dependency on Russian gas. In doing so, he was slated for seemingly putting Germany's economic interests ahead of people's lives in Ukraine in the face of a brutal and belligerent aggressor.

On Sunday Aug. 21, activists from protest group FEMEN took advantage of a photo opportunity with the Chancellor at an Open Day event at the German Chancellery in Berlin. Two women ran up to the Chancellor, unzipped their jackets and bared both their chests and their opposition to the country's stance against Russian gas.

"GAS EMBARGO NOW", was painted across on the chest of one of the girls, while they both shouted: "No money for Russian gas!" and "Stop financing the war!" while tossing money into the air.

The FEMEN movement organized the protest to highlight the German government's inaction in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine. An Aug. 21 statement on the FEMEN website reads:

"The German political appeasement course of the past few years has, of course, led Germany into an energy-economic dependence on Russia. This dependence on Putin's dictatorial regime, which is now waging a genocidal war against the Ukrainian people, has corrupted our German democracy. The German leadership has let the eyes of the country run into the knife. And while Russia destroys Ukrainian cities and murders civilians, it continues to successfully weaponize its energy. Germany's role in supporting Putin in his plan is shameful and painfully obvious."
FEMEN exposed
Founded in Ukraine in 2008, FEMEN currently operates across Europe, with bases in Paris, Berlin, and Hamburg. Its ultimate goal is "complete victory of patriarchy", and its main tactic is "sextremism," which it describes as "female sexuality rebelling against patriarchy and embodied in extremal political direct-action events."

In the 2016 documentary "Ukraine is not a Brothel", the group said: "We protest against patriarchy in all its forms, and against anything that infringes upon the rights of women."

FEMEN currently has about 40 activists, with some of its most influential members being Ukrainian women living in Paris. It was founded by Anna Hutsol, along with two friends Oleksandra Shevchenko and Oksana Shachko in their home city of Khmelnytskyi. While the protests often have a political element, both the Ukrainian government and the opposition distance themselves from the movement.

Among the movement's most famous protests was the 2010 "Ukraine is not Alina" demonstration against the visit of Putin - then Prime Minister of Russia, to Ukraine. In 2013, Shevchenko protested in front of Putin and then-German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. A photograph from the event became one of the year's best-known news story photos.

On July 26, 2012, a half-naked girl met Patriarch Kirill at Kyiv airport with shouts of "ISIS out" and the inscription "Kill Kirill" on her back.

On July 21, 2017, a FEMEN activist exposed herself to the Administration of the President of Ukraine, during a press conference with the President of Belarus, Aleksandar Lukashenko, and then President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

In February 2018, FEMEN activist Alisa Vinogradova, "protesting against the bloody regime", bared her breasts in front of Poroshenko at the annual Vienna Ball.

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The Bra-Absent Activists Who Stunned Scholz - Who are FEMEN?

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International protest group FEMEN turned its unique style of topless activism on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the weekend, in opposition to the country's slow response to eliminating dependency on Russian gas. But who exactly are FEMEN, and what do they hope to achieve? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb.

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https://www.harvard.com/book/pussy_riot_a_punk_prayer_for_freedom/

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"Can music change the world? Only in very special circumstances. Once in a generation, a band can create a moment on which society turns. Through your brave actions you have provided Russia with such a moment. Your fellow musicians stand with you."-Billy Bragg On February 21, 2012, five members of a Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot staged a performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Dressed in brightly colored tights and balaclavas, they performed their punk prayer, asking the Virgin Mary to drive out Russian president Vladimir Putin from the church. After just forty seconds, they were chased out by security. Three members of the collective, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, known as Masha, Nadya, and Katya, were later arrested and charged with felony hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. As their trial unfolded, these young women became global feminist icons, garnering the attention and support of activists and artists around the world. SPECIAL TO THE PRINT EDITION: New courtroom statements from October 10 appeal, and tributes by Bianca Jagger, Peaches & Simonne Jones, Tobi Vail, Barbara Browning, Vivien Goldman. Pussy Riot! is an essential document of this galvanizing historical moment. It includes letters from prison, courtroom statements, defense attorney closing arguments, poems, the infamous punk prayer, and tributes by Yoko Ono, Johanna Fateman, Karen Finley, Justin Vivian Bond, Eileen Myles, and JD Samson. Pussy Riot is a feminist punk performance collective based in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 2011, they perform public artistic responses to Russian politics. In February of 2012, three members of the group were arrested and charged with felony hooliganism after performing in the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were sentenced to two years in prison.

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"Can music change the world? Only in very special circumstances. Once in a generation, a band can create a moment on which society turns. Through your brave actions you have provided Russia with such a moment.

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Read & Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism by By Nadya Tolokonnikova

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Read & Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism by By Nadya Tolokonnikova

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https://www.harpercollins.com/products/read-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova?variant=32210077548578

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Pussy Riot: Speaking Punk to Power (Russian Shorts) by Eliot Borenstein

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Pussy Riot: Speaking Punk to Power (Russian Shorts) by Eliot Borenstein

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https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pussy-riot-9781350113558

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https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250164926

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International Women’s Day: what values does 8 March really celebrate in the New East?

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International Women’s Day: what values does 8 March really celebrate in the New East?

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/7868/international-womens-day-march

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‘Resistance is a girl that changes the world’: stream performances celebrating feminist activists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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‘Resistance is a girl that changes the world’: stream performances celebrating feminist activists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/12592/resistance-girl-stories-drama-series-feminist-activists-eastern-europe-and-central-asia

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‘Resistance is a girl that changes the world’: stream performances celebrating feminist activists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

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Roma-Romanian theatre Giuvlipen has launched an eye-opening video series that reveals the different faces of activism

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From artists to politicians, learn about the lives of Roma women with Instagram account @romani.herstory

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From artists to politicians, learn about the lives of Roma women with Instagram account @romani.herstory

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/12912/inspiring-roma-women-romani.herstory-instagram-account-follow-of-the-week

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Women, Politics, and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe (Online module)

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Women, Politics, and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe (Online module)

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https://u.osu.edu/womenpoliticsprotest/

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To create just and fair democratic societies, gender equality must be achieved. Yet, in societies around the world, past and present, gender equality is elusive.

To achieve equality, we need knowledge of the world, past and present. We need to know what the world looked like then and what it looks like now. We need to tell the story of how generations have struggled to make their societies equal, then and now.

Welcome to the project Women, Politics, and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe. This website is designed to provide basic knowledge for audiences unfamiliar with the history and current issues of gender and politics in these regions.

We tell the story of gender and political change from the rise of Communism, the revolutions of 1989, and on to the present day within the following topics:

About the Authors

The website's authors are from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences:

Adrianna Zabrzewska is an interdisciplinary feminist researcher, a Fulbright scholar, and a children's literature translator. She has a PhD in philosophy from the Graduate School for Social Research (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences). Adrianna is the co-editor of Gender Quotas in the Post-Communist World: Voice of the Parliamentarians and Gender, Voice, and Violence in Poland: Women's Protests during the Pandemic (both from IFiS PAN Publishers and with Joshua K. Dubrow).

Magdalena Grabowska is a sociologist and a professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. She holds a doctoral degree from Women and Gender Studies Department, Rutgers University. Between 2010-2014, she was a European Commission Marie Curie International Re-Integration Fellow at the University of Warsaw. She is the author of the book Broken Genealogy: Social and Political Women's Activism after 1945, and Contemporary Women's Movement in Poland (2018, Scholar Scientific Publishers). Her academic interests span history of emancipation movements in Central and Eastern Europe, post-coloniality, post-socialism, and transnational feminist movement. She also conducts engaged and activist research on violence and sexual violence, reproductive rights, women's equality, feminist and queer social mobilizations. She is a co-founder of the Foundation on Equality and Emancipation STER.

Joshua Dubrow is a PhD from the Department of Sociology of The Ohio State University, a Professor of Sociology from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), Project Coordinator for Cross-national Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training program (CONSIRT.osu.edu) and a lecturer at the Graduate School for Social Research of IFiS PAN. His research is on politics and inequality. His work can be found at https://politicalinequality.org/ and

Irina Tomescu-Dubrow is a PhD from the Department of Sociology of The Ohio State University, a Professor of Sociology from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), the Director of the Graduate School for Social Research of IFiS PAN, and co-Director of Cross-national Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training program (CONSIRT.osu.edu). She is the lead author of Dynamics of Class and Stratification in Poland (2018, CEU Press) and Subjective Experience of Joblessness in Poland (2019, Springer).
Funding for this website comes from the Title VI Comprehensive National Resource Center grant from the International and Foreign Language Education division of the U.S. Department of Education, awarded to The Ohio State University's Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES).

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Women, Politics, and Protest in Central and Eastern Europe

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To create just and fair democratic societies, gender equality must be achieved. Yet, in societies around the world, past and present, gender equality is elusive. To achieve equality, we need knowledge of the world, past and present. We need to know what the world looked like then and what it looks like now.

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5 feminist collectives leading the charge for women’s rights in Poland

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5 feminist collectives leading the charge for women’s rights in Poland

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/12301/poland-protests-women-rights-feminist-groups-organisations

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https://culture.pl/en/artist/maria-konopnicka

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The greatest Polish female poet from the times of realism, author of short stories and books for children, literary critic and translator. She was born on May 23rd 1842 in Suwałki and died on October 8th 1910 in Lviv.

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F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry edited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse

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F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry edited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse

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https://www.isolarii.com/

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Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen 

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Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen 

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https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314912/words-will-break-cement-by-masha-gessen/

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Praise for WORDS WILL BREAK CEMENT: THE PASSION OF PUSSY RIOT

Named a Best Book of 2014 by NPR and The Guardian

"Urgent ... damning ... Much here will be new to the American reader. All of it is infuriating." -Alexander Nazaryan, The New York Times

"Remarkable...Masha Gessen [is] one of the most important activists and journalists Russia has known in a generation... disquieting, moving, and closely reported." -David Remnick, The New Yorker

"Simply put, this is the best, most urgent book I've read about art this year. Through rigorous research and furiously fine storytelling, Masha Gessen places the band's founding members unflinchingly into context, revealing the worlds they move between (of Russian activists, intellectuals and prisoners) and reminding us that art really can change the world - if you're an artist with the guts to try." -NPR

"The fullest account so far of the Pussy Riot story... A moving object lesson in the power of art - perhaps especially messy and exuberant art - to rise above repression and have the last, cement-breaking word." -Sara Marcus, Los Angeles Times

"Valuable for its insights into the modern cultural history of Russia, with all its idealistic muddles, dead-ends and false starts ... ideal for those curious about the country behind the Games." - The Economist

"What makes someone into a dissident? Why do some people give up everything - home, family, job - to embark on a career of protest? ... Gessen set out to answer this question ... in this excellent short account." - The Washington Post

"A compulsively readable book that explains in unflinching terms the tragedy that is modern Russia... Words Will Break Cement is an instant classic, destined to take its place with Solzhenitsyn's writings about the Gulag... one comes away...marveling at the courage of the Pussy Riot members making a stand against tyranny while demonstrating the willingness to pay a steep price" - New York Journal of Books

"Riveting... [Gessen] is a sharp observer of people and events, and she tells Pussy Riot's story in a lively style that is somehow casual, precise, and powerful all at once. She has written a terrific book, a compelling story of three creative women who courageously attacked a repressive regime by disrupting the spectacle of its propaganda." - The Rumpus

"The significance of Words Will Break Cement...is its demonstration that Pussy Riot's rambunctious confrontations with the authorities are the result of several years of growing frustration with Putin's rule...The genius of Pussy Riot...has been to employ guerilla street theater and a sense of humor along with unbridled profanity-all the better to skewer the pretensions of power and privilege Putin insists are his due... Words Will Break Cement makes clear that Pussy Riot is more than just a small group of disorderly anarchists." - New York Times Book Review

"Masha Gessen's history of founding Pussy Riot members Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich provides some crucial context for understanding the motives and means of the group...Gessen's account helpfully highlights the lineage of art and protest that gave rise to Pussy Riot.. Pussy Riot is what art endangered looks like; their songs are salvos; their hits are strikes."

"[A] fascinating insider account ... As Russia waves sabers at the Ukraine and considers a new cultural policy that explicitly rejects multiculturalism and tolerance, the young women of Pussy Riot increasingly seem not like radicals but prophets. ... Vivid and empathic." -Seattle Times

"A compelling and eloquent account of current events." -The Christian Science Monitor

"Gessen offers a lively and sympathetic portrait of the three women at the center of the storm... keenly observed and often moving." - The Guardian

"[An] angry, clear and intimate look at the women behind Pussy Riot." - The Sunday Times

"Compelling and highly readable. It's an artist biography, a meditation on revolutionary art and gender politics, an absurdist courtroom drama and defiant commentary on the cultural climate of Gessen's homeland - a place for which the author obviously has enduring love and concern." - Eugene Weekly

"Pussy Riot is a global cause célèbre, and now Gessen-prickly, frank, precise, and sharply witty-provides the first in-depth look at this story-in-progress"- Booklist (starred review)

"Based on interviews with Pussy Riot members (including those arrested and others in the group), their families, friends, and attorneys, Gessen puts their protest and arrests in the context of post-Soviet, Putin-era Russia's culture and society... Recommended to readers in feminist studies, those following Putin's Russia, and all who study protest art." - Library Journal

Praise for THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE: THE UNLIKELY RISE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

"Gessen has shown remarkable courage... [An] unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia." - The Wall Street Journal

"[Gessen] shines a piercing light into every dark corner of Putin's story... Fascinating, hard-hitting reading." - Foreign Affairs

"Illuminating... It is with [the] explosive revelations that Gessen truly excels... An electrifying read from what can only be described as an incredibly brave writer." - Columbia Journalism Review

"Part psychological profile, part conspiracy study. As a Moscow native who has written perceptively for both Russian and Western publications, Gessen knows the cultures and pathologies of Russia... [and has] a delicious command of the English language... A fiercely independent journalist... Gessen's armchair psychoanalysis of Putin is speculative. But it is a clever and sometimes convincing speculation, based on a close reading of Putin's own inadvertently revealing accounts of his life, and on interviews with people who knew Putin before he mattered." - The New York Times Book Review

"Absorbing." - The New Yorker

"Powerful and gracefully written." - The San Francisco Chronicle

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Words Will Break Cement by Masha Gessen: 9781594632198 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Praise for WORDS WILL BREAK CEMENT: THE PASSION OF PUSSY RIOT Named a Best Book of 2014 by NPR and The Guardian "Urgent ... damning ... Much here will be new to the American reader. All of it is infuriating."

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FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko on her path to becoming a feminist activist (Ukraine)

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FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko on her path to becoming a feminist activist (Ukraine)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2mq4fEm2c

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FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko on her path to becoming a feminist activist

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmSXB7ukH4M

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDegNIppdno

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY

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All hail Manizha, the Tajik-Russian musician rewriting the rules on what it means to belong 

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All hail Manizha, the Tajik-Russian musician rewriting the rules on what it means to belong 

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/features/show/11739/manizha-russian-tajik-musician-identity-russia-z

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Russian feminist artist labelled as ‘foreign agent’: how we got here

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Russian feminist artist labelled as ‘foreign agent’: how we got here

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https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/12451/darya-apakhonchich-russian-feminist-artist-labelled-foreign-agent-explainer

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https://girlstothefront.pl/

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https://femen.org/about-us/

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In the beginning, there was the body, feeling of the woman's body, feeling of joy because it is so light and free. Then there was injustice, so sharp that you feel it with your body, it immobilizes the body, hinders its movements, and then you find yourself your body's hostage.

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https://data.unwomen.org/country/uzbekistan

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What Pussy Riot's 'Punk Prayer' Really Said

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What Pussy Riot's 'Punk Prayer' Really Said

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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/what-pussy-riots-punk-prayer-really-said/264562/

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The publicity outside Russia surrounding the Pussy Riot trial has focused on the band members' kinetic, sock-it-to 'em dance style and mocking prostrations before the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, the colorful balaclavas they wore to perform their "punk prayer," their erudite, eloquent statements in court, and the sentencing of three of them, in August, to two years in a penal colony for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." (One sentence has since been overturned on appeal and a band member freed.) That the punk prayer began with the choral refrain that translates as "Birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!" has also been reported, of course, which words would seem to explain their conviction, if we assume their real offence was not "hooliganism" of one sort or another, but a brazen act of lèse majesté -- of insulting the ruler -- against Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The lèse majesté argument seems to hold sway outside Russia, but, rightly or wrongly, a plurality of Russians in the country itself disagree. According to polls conducted by the respected Levada Center, 42 percent of Russians consider the punk prayer an attack on the Russian Orthodox Church. Only 19 percent saw it as a protest against Putin. The difference may have a simple explanation: Unlike most in the West, the Levada poll respondents had probably heard the whole song before forming an opinion about it. In fact, the rest of the punk prayer's lyrics amount to an iconoclastic cri de coeur deriding popular Russian subservience to a clergy many regard as corrupt, denouncing (widespread, in Russia) conservative attitudes toward gays, assailing the increasingly tight relationship between church and the (constitutionally secular) state, as well ridiculing the age-old perception in Russia that rulers exercise power through a mandate from God (or, in the Soviet era, though a mandate from history, the Marxist version of which posited the death of capitalism and the triumph of communism). Putin, accordingly, was not Pussy Riot's only target. The band was challenging the entirety of the social and political order he has fostered since coming to power almost 13 years ago.

So what are the rest of the lyrics? If translations of varying accuracy can be found on the web, only one major media outlet (to my knowledge) has published them in their entirety (in the Guardian, available here), but the version suffers from the refined artistic talent of the translator, who turned Pussy Riot's staccato, elliptic verbiage (well suited to their now notoriously shrill and shouted style of delivery) into poetry and made a number of subjective interpretations regarding the meaning:

Virgin birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!

Black frock, golden epaulettes
Parishioners crawl bowing [toward the priest, during the Eucharist]
Freedom's ghost [has gone to] heaven
A gay-pride parade [has been] sent to Siberia in shackles

Their chief saint is the head of the KGB
He leads a convoy of protestors to jail
So as not to insult the Holiest One
Woman should bear children and love
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!

The "golden epaulettes" call to mind KGB officers and military dress uniforms, and the juxtaposition with "black frock" is no accident. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russian Orthodox priests were denounced as having collaborated with country's most feared spy agency. In fact, the current Patriarch Kirill I stands accused by journalists, the Helsinki Group (a prominent Russian human rights organization), and, of course, Pussy Riot, of working with the KGB. (In her court statement, now free band member Yekaterina Samutsevich referred to him as Putin's "former colleague.") The group chose the cathedral as their locus of protest because, again according to Samutsevich, it had been "used openly as a flashy backdrop for the politics of the security forces."

Of gay parades: Moscow municipal authorities have routinely denied permits for gay pride marches, though certainly none have been "sent to Siberia in irons." Putin is surely "the chief saint" in line 7, but "the Holiest One" would be Patriarch Kirill, whose traditionalist stance on women's roles must not be offended. Since its inception in 2011, Pussy Riot, through its songs, has propagated an aggressive philosophy of feminism in a country where the word "feminist" carries a foul, overtly Western connotation.

All of which makes the Church, in Pussy Riot's spiteful parlance, little better than a pile of "the Lord's shit."

A second self-explanatory choral refrain then follows:

Virgin birth-giver of God, become a feminist!
Become a feminist, become a feminist!

Which segues back into lines about politics and corruption:

The Church praises rotten leaders
The march of the cross consists of black limousines
A preacher is on his way to your school
Go to class and give him money!

Patriarch Kirill has moved the Church ever closer to the Kremlin and, ahead of presidential elections last March, openly called on Russians to vote for Putin. The "march of the cross" refers to the ceremony (krestnyi khod, in Russian), enacted during Easter celebrations, in which parishioners form processions and carry crosses from local churches around town. Intended as a sincere expression of faith, the march has been corrupted, Pussy Riot implies, both by the Church's proximity to political power and by the Yeltsin-era privilege it once enjoyed (by presidential decree) to import luxury cars (as well as tobacco) duty-free. Hence the reference to "black limousines."

Patriarch Gundyay believes in Putin
Would be better, the bastard, if he believed in God!
The Virgin's belt won't replace political gatherings
The eternal Virgin Mary is with us in our protests!

Virgin birth-Giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!

Patriarch Kirill's secular surname is Gundyayev. The Patriarch called Putin "a miracle from God" in his endorsement, thus making clear his faith in him. The Russian word used for my "bastard" was suka (bitch), which can't apply to a male subject, so I've made the corresponding change. The "Virgin's belt" seems to refer to the holy relic, the "Belt of the Blessed Birthgiver of God" brought from Mount Athos in Greece to the Cathedral some months before Pussy Riot's performance there. Thousands lined up in fierce cold to pay it homage, many in the hope that the sash purportedly worn by the Virgin while she was carrying Jesus might cure their ailments. Pussy Riot was, thus, saying "Don't look to God for help, you've got to get out on the streets and demand change!" The import of the next line is clear: The Virgin Mary, who is purported to stand with the downtrodden (and not, presumably, with institutions allied with authoritarian regimes), must, in Pussy Riot's view, support them in their fight for justice.

The punk prayer's lyrics have done much to highlight, even exacerbate, deep-rooted divisions in Russian society over faith, the exercise of personal freedoms, and the concept of justice. Acts of desecration and vandalism of church property began multiplying shortly after the band members' sentencing, with the result that the State Duma, with the Church's support, is pushing for legislation that would criminalize blasphemy. A mounting sense of conflict may be just what Pussy Riot intended. The band is, after all, an outgrowth of an earlier protest group called Voina -- War.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Jeffrey Tayler is a former contributing editor at The Atlantic and the author of seven books.

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What Pussy Riot's 'Punk Prayer' Really Said

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The publicity outside Russia surrounding the Pussy Riot trial has focused on the band members' kinetic, sock-it-to 'em dance style and mocking prostrations before the altar of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, the colorful balaclavas they wore to perform their "punk prayer," their erudite, eloquent statements in court, and the sentencing of three of them, in August, to two years in a penal colony for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."

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https://pussyriot.love/

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Pussy Riot is a feminist conceptual art group

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https://knowledgespace.org.ua/en#about-us