PRESS CLIPPINGS- 31 May, 2012

UN WOMEN HQ COMMUNICATIONS
ONLINE MEDIA MONITORING
31 MAY 2012
PRESS CLIPPINGS- 31 May, 2012
The following is a compilation of gender related stories from leading media: The New York
Times, Financial Times, BBC, Al Jazeera English, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Times of
India, China Daily, El País (Spain), El Mundo (Spain), Clarín (Argentina) NOTIMEX (Mexican News
Agency), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France) and Le Figaro (France).
NEW YORK TIMES
An Exposé Before a Vote on Gender-Based Abortions
Last Updated, 2:20 p.m. The House rejected a bill on Thursday that would have banned
abortions based on gender.
The vote came as a group opposed to abortion rights stepped up its campaign against what it
said is an increase in sex-selective abortions, using hoax patient visits and hidden cameras to
show Planned Parenthood employees offering guidance to women looking to terminate their
pregnancies because they were concerned about having a girl.
The group, Live Action, released an edited undercover video and an unedited version on
Tuesday of an employee at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin, Tex., giving information to a
woman pretending to want to terminate her pregnancy if she was carrying a girl.
At a news conference Thursday morning in Washington with Representative Trent Franks, a
Republican from Arizona who is the main sponsor of the bill known as the Prenatal
Nondiscrimination Act, or Prenda, the group released a second video that was filmed with a
hidden camera at the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan.
Both the edited and unedited versions of the Manhattan video show a meeting between a
counselor and a woman also pretending she wants to be pregnant only with a boy.
In the video, the counselor answers questions in a matter-of-fact, nonjudgmental approach
about what prenatal tests can be used to determine gender in a pregnancy. The counselor also
suggests prenatal care in the case that the hoax patient continues her pregnancy. The counselor
also asks if the woman would consider adoption.
At the end of the meeting the woman from Live Action asks the counselor to schedule an
abortion for her should prenatal test results confirm the gender is female.
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She also asks whether staff members at Planned Parenthood would raise questions if she came
back for multiple abortions “if we end up being unlucky, and we keep having girls.”
The staff member replies, “That, I really can’t answer for you.” Then she adds: “Here at Planned
Parenthood it is not up to us what is a good or bad reason for somebody to decide to terminate
a pregnancy. It is up to the individual person to decide what is best for you and your family.”
In response to the hoax patient video earlier this week, Planned Parenthood issued a statement
saying that it opposed gender-selection abortion and arguing that the group’s videos were
being used to promote “false claims about our organization and patient services.”
Lila Rose, 23, a recent graduate of U.C.L.A. who is the president and founder of Live Action, an
antiabortion group that she started at age 15, said the undercover videos exposed what she
said was a growing practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned
Parenthood and other abortion providers facilitated the selective elimination of baby girls in
the womb.
She said hidden cameras were used to make videos in about a dozen abortion clinics around
the country in April and would be released in the coming week as part of a “Protect Our Girls”
campaign.
“In the last year, we started to get disturbing tips from people, from ultrasound technicians
who said women would ask to schedule an abortion immediately after learning the sex,” Ms.
Rose said in an interview. “We are seeing not only coaching on how to do gender determination
but willingness to arrange a late term abortion.”
Leslie Kantor, vice president of education for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
said that Planned Parenthood “condemns sex selection motivated by gender bias, and urges
leaders to challenge the underlying conditions that lead to these beliefs and practices, including
addressing the social, legal, economic and political conditions that promote gender bias and
lead some to value one gender over the other. ”
Ms. Kantor said that the employee in the Austin center was in an entry-level position and “did
not follow our protocol for providing information and guidance when presented with a highly
unusual patient scenario.” She said that the employee was terminated three days after the
patient hoax visit last April and that staff members at the Austin affiliate were immediately
scheduled for retraining in “managing unusual patient encounters.”
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On Wednesday, members of the House debated the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which
would impose up to a five-year jail term on doctors who perform abortions based on gender.
Opponents of the bill say it is the latest effort by Republicans to chip away at women’s
reproductive rights.
Representative Franks said during the debate over the bill on Wednesday that recent studies
had shown that the practice of sex-selection abortion was “demonstrably increasing here in the
United States.”
Representative John Conyers Jr. and other Democrats who spoke up against the legislation
argued that the bill would effectively destroy the “doctor-patient relationship by turning all
health care providers into police. It would require a doctor to try and read her patient’s mind
and determine what her reasons are.”
Representative Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey and a longtime opponent of abortion
rights, cited the blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, who spoke out against forced
abortions in his native China.
“For most of us, Mr. Speaker, ‘It’s a girl’ is cause for enormous joy, happiness and celebration,”
Mr. Smith said during the debate. “But in many countries including our own, it could be a death
sentence. Today the three most dangerous words in China and India are ‘It’s a girl.’ We can’t let
that happen here.”
Planned Parenthood also issued a statement against the bill, amid all the questions that Live
Action was trying to raise from its videos.
“As the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health provider and advocate, Planned
Parenthood knows all too well that women still face gender discrimination in this country,” said
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “We oppose sex
selection abortion. But this bill does nothing to advance protections against discrimination and
instead will have the result of further shaming and stigmatizing women. ”
The House vote was 246 to 168 in favor of the bill but it failed to win passage because a twothirds vote was needed for approval.
The debate over women’s reproductive rights and health care has taken a central role in the
coming presidential and Congressional elections, with both sides declaring a war on women’s
rights. As my colleague Michael D. Shear reported on Wednesday, Planned Parenthood has put
money into an advertising campaign targeting Mitt Romney.
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http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/an-expose-before-a-vote-on-gender-basedabortions/
The Guardian
Why are there so few female national newspaper editors?
The Daily Star's Dawn Neesom now stands alone – we need more diversity in the top newsroom
roles
The Daily Star's Dawn Neesom: now Fleet Street's sole female editor. Photograph: Eamonn
McCabe for the Guardian
And then there was one. The timing of Wednesday's news that Tina Weaver has left the Sunday
Mirror came as a shock for many reasons, one of which is the realisation that Dawn Neesom is
now the only female editor of a national newspaper in the UK.
With apologies to the newly appointed Sarah Sands of the London Evening Standard, who could
argue quite rightly that her paper has more clout than Neesom's Daily Star, it's worth pointing
out the rarity of women in the upper echelons of the national daily and Sunday titles in this
country.
We have to go back to the early 1980s, coincidentally a period ruled over by the UK's first and
only female prime minister, to find a time when there were so few women at the top of
journalism. Why?
The first thing to say is that this is not necessarily a quality newspaper issue. The Daily Star, with
its daily diet of celebs, sports and "babes", is hardly a must-have for rival newspaper desks, let
alone a setter of the national agenda.
The paucity of female bosses in our national newspapers appears to follow a pattern in which
industries are roughly equally split at entry level (postgraduate in the case of today's
journalists) before losing most of the women as they age. In the US, while women make up 37%
of daily newspaper employees, under 10% are in "supervisory or upper management positions",
according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
But also because there is plentiful research, including from the International Women's Media
Foundation, suggesting that including women in the national discourse has an impact on the
way women are portrayed.
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So, according to the Global Media Monitoring Project in 2010, 24% of people interviewed,
heard, seen or read about in mainstream broadcast and print news were female. But news
stories by female reporters are almost twice as likely to challenge gender stereotypes, such as
women providing natural illustrations in domestic situations, than stories by male reporters.
The figures were almost identical on the web, suggesting that attitudes are simply repeating
themselves online. Similar research is patchier in the UK but there is little to suggest that it is
any different.
Again, the career of Neesom, whose Daily Star website offers separate tabs for "retro babes",
"celeb babes" and "sports babes", hardly helps justify support for more female editors. Which is
exactly why diversity is a good thing. Nobody looks to all men to behave in a certain way but
when there is just one editor/cabinet minister/judge, she somehow becomes the very essence
of the way all women behave.
Neesom is also becoming an increasing rarity in an industry dominated by white men who went
to private schools. Her mother was a cleaner and her father a lorry driver. A rare breed indeed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/the-womens-blog-with-janemartinson/2012/may/31/female-newspaper-editors?INTCMP=SRCH
Aljazeera
Woman sentenced to death by stoning in Sudan
Young woman held in a Khartoum prison with her baby son sentenced to be stoned to death for
adultery.
A Sudanese woman, believed to be about 20, has been sentenced to be stoned to death for
adultery, rights groups and lawyers have said.
Intisar Sharif Abdalla is being held near Khartoum, shackled in prison with her baby son.
Campaigners condemned Thursday's ruling, saying it violated international standards and raised
concerns that Sudan might start applying Islamic law more strictly following the secession of
mostly non-Muslim South Sudan last year.
Abdalla was sentenced by the Ombada criminal court, just west of the capital, on April 22, court
documents seen by the Reuters news agency showed.
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Two lawyers assigned to her case, who declined to be named, said they were launching an
appeal, adding Abdalla appeared to be under severe psychological strain.
"She's in dire need of a psychiatrist because she appears to be in a state of shock from the
social and family pressures she's under," one lawyer said.
Abdalla was illiterate and did not have a lawyer or interpreter in the courtroom, although
Arabic is not her native language, the lawyers and activists added.
Arabic is the main language in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, though a wide range of
smaller languages are also spoken, particularly in tribal areas. It was unclear where Abdalla
came from.
Islamic law
Officials in Sudan's justice and information ministries said they could not immediately comment
on the case when Reuters contacted them by phone.
Abdalla's exact age has not been confirmed, although some reports indicated she could be
younger than 20.
"The case certainly raises concerns about how judges are interpreting and applying the laws of
Sudan," Jehanne Henry, a senior research at advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said.
Floggings are a common punishment in Sudan for crimes like drinking alcohol and adultery. But
sentences of stoning are rare.
Following a 1989 coup, Sudan introduced laws that took sharia as their main source and hosted
fighters including Osama bin Laden.
While the government has since sought to improve its image internationally by distancing itself
from radical Islamists, it is still one of only a few countries to list death by stoning in its statutes.
In 2010, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said the country would adopt a fully Islamic
constitution following the secession of the south, agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended
decades of civil war.
Most people in South Sudan are Christian or follow traditional African beliefs.
Appeal
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The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, a network of civil society groups, said
Abdalla was still in danger despite the appeal.
"Although this appeal is in process, Intisar ostensibly remains at risk of being stoned and in real
terms, her life is still very much on the line," it said in a statement.
In 2010, the case of Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese UN official, sparked international furore when
she was sentenced to flogging for wearing trousers.
Fahima Hashim, a women's rights activist following Abdalla's case, said sentences were often
inconsistent in Sudan because the legal system gave authority to judges to decide punishments.
Previous stoning sentences had not been carried out, she said.
Hashim called for the reform of articles in Sudan's criminal code which she said harm women's
rights, including one used in Abdalla's case.
As long as this article remained unchanged, execution by stoning would not be out of the
question, she said. "It's a threat. It could happen."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/05/2012531182332694820.html
FRENCH
L’Express
Les femmes excisées découvrent souvent leur mutilation grâce aux médias ou à leur médecin
Depuis ce mardi, un couple est jugé devant le tribunal de la Nièvre pour avoir fait exciser leurs
quatre filles. Entre tabous familiaux et lutte associative, où en sont ces pratiques en France?
L'éclairage d'Armelle Andro, co-responsable de l'unité de recherche démographie, genre et
sociétés de l'INED.
Vous avez réalisé une étude en 2007 sur les mutilations sexuelles féminines en Afrique et en
France. Selon vos estimations, combien y aurait-il de femmes excisées sur le territoire?
A partir des données de l'Insee, recoupées par des études menées dans plusieurs pays d'Afrique
concernés, nous avons estimé qu'en 2004, 55 000 femmes adultes excisées vivaient sur notre
territoire. Il s'agit de migrantes ou de descendantes de migrants, qui viennent majoritairement
du Mali et de Guinée. D'après les résultats de notre enquête, parmi les filles qui sont nées en
France de mères excisées, seules 3% d'entre elles sont mutilées et la pratique diminue
rapidement au fil des générations.
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Ces mutilations sont-elles pratiquées sur le territoire français ou dans les pays d'origine?
Lors de notre enquête, nous avons interrogé plus de 700 femmes excisées. La grande majorité
d'entre elles ont subi ces pratiques en dehors du territoire. Globalement, l'excision a quasiment
disparu en France depuis les années 1990. Cependant, le risque persiste dans certaines familles
mais essentiellement lors du retour des jeunes filles dans le pays d'origine. Le cas de cette
famille dans la Nièvre est sans aucun doute isolé mais rappelle qu'il ne faut pas relâcher
l'attention.
Aujourd'hui, quel regard portent ces familles migrantes sur l'excision?
Les mutilations sexuelles demeurent un sujet tabou dans la famille. Les jeunes filles excisées souvent au cours de leur petite enfance - s'en souviennent rarement et le découvrent par
l'intermédiaire des médias ou de leur médecin. Mais la grande majorité des familles a
abandonné cette tradition. La crainte des sanctions pénales et la prévention ont joué un rôle
important dans le déclin de cette pratique. De plus, beaucoup de femmes tirent le bilan d'une
vie douloureuse et ne veulent pas l'infliger à leurs filles. Toutefois, on peut estimer que 15% des
familles de migrants des régions dans laquelle cette pratique est populaire seraient encore
susceptibles d'y recourir.
Qu'en pensent les hommes originaires de pays où l'excision est répandue?
Leur position reste très ambiguë. Ils considèrent souvent que "c'est une histoire de femmes"
mais, dans la pratique, ce sont eux qui exercent une forte pression familiale à ce sujet. D'abord,
parce qu'une partie de ces hommes refusent toujours de se marier avec des femmes non
excisées. D'autre part, dans les familles migrantes, ils doivent impérativement donner leur
accord pour que leurs filles retournent en vacances dans leur pays d'origine, où elles risquent
de subir ces pratiques.
Que propose-t-on en France pour vaincre cette pratique?
De manière générale, la lutte contre excision est menée au niveau international. Mais les
dispositifs français, pris dans leur ensemble, ont été et sont toujours particulièrement efficaces.
Les migrations africaines sont anciennes en France et dès les années 1970 les pouvoirs publics
donc été sensibilisé plus tôt à ce problème. Par ailleurs, l'activité incessante des associations
françaises telle que le GAMS et la CAMS, qui s'est notamment portée partie civile dans le procès
du couple qui se tient actuellement, a joué un rôle important dans la mise en oeuvre de la
politique française contre les mutilations sexuelles. De plus, depuis 2004, la France est le seul
pays à proposer gratuitement la réparation chirurgicale de l'excision. Mais cette intervention
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n'est pas systématique car les séquelles physiques sont variables d'une femme à l'autre.
Cependant, plus de 3000 femmes ont déjà bénéficié de ce processus de réappropriation de leur
corps et de leur sexualité.
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/les-femmes-excisees-decouvrent-souvent-leurmutilation-grace-aux-medias-ou-a-leur-medecin_1120546.html
Libération
Parité, diversité: «L'Etat doit être exemplaire»
La photo se voulait parfaite: 17 femmes sur 34 ministres et quelques visages rappelant que le
pays n'est pas seulement blanc de peau. L'enquête de Libération publiée jeudi démontre que,
derrière ce cliché, la machine du pouvoir a rempli les cabinets ministériels de profils bien plus
classiques -mâles et blancs. La réaction de Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, porte-parole du
gouvernement et ministre du droit des femmes.
Pourquoi la parité et la diversité du gouvernement ne se retrouvent pas dans la composition
des cabinets ministériels?
Instaurer la parité au niveau du gouvernement est un acte politique fort. Je dis «acte politique»
car justement, dans une société comme la nôtre où le pouvoir est encore en majorité détenu
par les hommes, instaurer la partage des responsabilités au plus haut niveau de l’Etat n’était
pas automatique. Il reste bien entendu des progrès à faire et vous avez raison de souligner la
question de la composition des cabinets. Mon cabinet sera paritaire. Je dirais même qu’il sera
plus que paritaire, mais ça ne suffira pas à assurer un équilibre dans l’ensemble du
gouvernement. Mais nous avons eu beaucoup d’échanges ces derniers jours avec les équipes
qui s’installent et je peux vous assurer que quelque chose de nouveau se passe dans le
gouvernement. En tant que Ministre des Droits des Femmes, je veillerai à ce que la dynamique
ne retombe pas, voire s’amplifie afin de combler les retards qui restent.
Le gouvernement a adopté une charte de déontologie. La question de l’exemplarité sur ces
thèmes n’aurait-elle pas pu y figurer?
Ne nous trompons pas d’exercice. L’égalité n’est pas une question de déontologie. C’est une
question de justice et de respect du droit. Mais dans les deux domaines, le gouvernement a une
exigence d’exemplarité. La charte de déontologie concerne le fonctionnement des ministères.
Mais vous soulevez un point important: l’exemplarité de l’Etat comme sa capacité à être
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moteur, à tous les niveaux, en matière d’égalité femmes-hommes sont déterminants si nous
voulons changer réellement la donne.
Nous préparons actuellement des mesures pour que l’Etat soit exemplaire en tant
qu’employeur et que la question des femmes soit systématiquement posée. Je voudrais que
nous nous inspirions des études d’impact pratiquées par des pays comme la Suède ou la
Commission européenne. Elles permettent d’analyser chaque politique publique à la lumière de
leurs conséquences sur les femmes. Il faut aussi renforcer la coordination interministérielle.
J’avancerai rapidement sur ces questions, en lien avec le Premier ministre et les ministres
concernés, pour que les 40 engagements que le président de la République a pris le 22 avril
soient tous tenus: égalité professionnelle, lutte contre la précarité féminine et les temps
partiels contraints, application réelle de la loi contre les violences, nouvelle dispositions sur le
harcèlement sexuel, lutte contre les stéréotypes etc.. Ces engagements seront ma feuille de
route. J’en suis comptable.
Comment les ministres peuvent-ils travailler à être exemplaires en matière d'égalité et de nondiscrimination, notamment dans la fonction publique?
Les leviers pour réaliser l’égalité femmes–hommes dans la fonction publique sont connus. La loi
du 12 mars dernier en donne quelques-uns: remise chaque année d’un rapport au Parlement
pour faire l’état des lieux de l’égalité femmes–hommes dans la fonction publique, minimum de
40% de femmes dans les nominations dans l’encadrement ou droit des femmes de réintégrer
leur poste après un congé maternité.
Ces progrès demeurent partiels. Je me suis notamment toujours interrogée sur les raisons qui
justifient de prévoir que 40% des nominations soient réservées à des femmes d’ici 2017. Seul
un objectif de parité totale, à atteindre dans un délai à déterminer, est légitime. Nous
travaillons avec Marylise Lebranchu [ministre de la Réforme de l’Etat, ndlr], sur ces sujets qui
pour certains, relèvent de la concertation avec les partenaires sociaux.
La question s'est-elle posée de nommer une femme à la tête de votre cabinet?
Oui, bien sûr, la question s’est posée. Mais je n’en n’ai pas fait une condition sine qua non. Le
choix d’un directeur ou d’une directrice de cabinet relève d’une alchimie complexe pour un ou
une ministre. Une des conditions pour moi –parmi beaucoup d’autres- était que mon directeur
de cabinet soit féministe et donc convaincu que l’égalité femmes–hommes est un levier
indispensable à la transformation de toute la société. C’est le cas du directeur de cabinet que
j’ai choisi, mais aussi de tous les collaborateurs qui m’entourent. Nous mettrons toutes nos
compétences au service des droits des femmes.
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http://www.liberation.fr/politiques/2012/05/31/parite-diversite-l-etat-doit-etre-exemplaireen-matiere-d-egalite_822536
TF1
Elle est chargée de la sécurité du président de la République
C'est une première. Le groupe de sécurité de la présidence de la République (GSPR) sera dirigé
par une femme, la commissaire Sophie Hatt, nommée mardi à ce poste, selon une source
proche du dossier.
Quadragénaire, Sophie Hatt avait commandé au début des années 2000 la trentaine de
policiers du Groupe de sécurité du Premier ministre (GSPM), Lionel Jospin étant à Matignon.
Elle remplace Michel Besnard, un ancien commandant de police entré dans le corps préfectoral,
qui avait été nommé par Nicolas Sarkozy. Le GSPR - actuellement fort d'une centaine de
personnes - est intégré depuis 2008 au service de protection des hautes personnalités (SPHP),
dont le responsable actuel est Gilles Furigo, également donné partant par des sources proches
du dossier.
http://lci.tf1.fr/politique/une-femme-en-charge-de-la-securite-du-president-de-la-republique7323276.html
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