First Woman Resists Iraq Deployment

IRAQ

First Woman G.I. Resists Deployment to Middle East - Berkeley Daily Planet
Army National Guard Specialist Katherine Jashinski announced her opposition to war and refused deployment to Iraq last month at Fort Benning, Ga. She became the first women conscientious objector of the Iraq war to make a public statement against militarism. At her press conference, organized by Iraqi Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, Jashinski described her "slow transformation into adulthood." "At age 19, I enlisted in the guard. Like many teenagers who leave their home for the first time, I went through a period of growth and soul searching," she said. "I started to reevaluate everything that I had been taught about war as a child. Because I believe so strongly in non-violence, I cannot perform any role in the military... Now I have come to the point where I am forced to choose between my obligation to the Army and my deepest moral values. I will not compromise my beliefs for any reason." Jashinski applied for conscientious objector status in 2004. After 18 months of stalling, the Army denied her claim and ordered her to weapons training in preparation for deployment to the Mideast.


INTERNATIONAL

Record number of women to contest Palestinian elections - AFP
A record number of women will take up seats in the Palestinian parliament following January's legislative elections, including the wives and widows of notable political figures.

Arab women call on Arab governments to ratify CEDAW - Kuwait News Agency
Participants in the three days conference on women's rights concluded meetings in the Yemeni capital Monday, calling on all Arab governments to approve the Convention of Eliminating all forms of Discrimination Against Women. The participants, 300 women representing Arab governmental and non-governmental organizations, also called on Arab governments who had ratified the convention to practically apply it, reported Yemen News Agency, SABA. The final statement of the conference recommended drafting strategies and mechanisms to back the implementation of all conventions concerning women's rights. The recommendations called for making progress in the field of women's education through eradicating illiteracy among females through the applying the principle of free basic education in rural and urban areas.

Sex lessons planned for all children - Guardian
Compulsory sex lessons for primary school children as young as five are to be backed by the government's official advisers on sexual behaviour in an unpublished report obtained by The Observer. If accepted, the proposals would be the biggest shake-up in sex education in schools in England and Wales. The document says the current system for sex lessons, which are mostly optional, is unfair, confused, damaging to pupils' health and development and partly responsible for Britain having the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in western Europe. At present all pupils get basic biological information, but those at some schools are also given details about subjects such as contraception and sexually transmitted infections.

Singapore informs spouses of HIV-positive partners - Reuters
Singapore's Health Ministry has started informing spouses of HIV-positive patients directly about their partners' disease in order to curb the spread of AIDS, the ministry said. Letters had been hand-delivered to 41 women since July informing them that their husbands were HIV-positive, the ministry quoted Senior Minister of State for Health Balaji Sadasivan as saying in a speech made on Monday. A ministry official declined to elaborate on Tuesday, referring to the ministry's Web site for more details. "Previously, some wives were not aware of their spouse's HIV status and so they were at risk of the HIV infection. Since July this year, we have informed the wife when the infected husband had not informed her of his positive HIV status," Sadasivan said, according to a text of his speech posted on the Web site.

Violence against women on rise in Nepal - Angola Press
Violence against women in the Nepalese households has gone up from 567 reported cases in 2003 to 1,022 cases in 2004.
"The main reason for increasing violence against women from their male counterparts is the absence of legal provisions to address domestic violence," Deputy Inspector General of Police Kumar Koirala said at a program on "Break Men`s Silence About The Violence Against Women." "Unless we restructure the gender relations in our society, it would be difficult to reduce violence against women," Koirala noted, adding, "Advocacy and awareness building are the main issues that could help address the situation."

Rural Kurdistan, where choosing a husband can be the death of you - Financial Times
Khonja, a 25-year-old Kurd, lives in the Nawa Centre for threatened women in the north Iraqi town of Sulimaniya, fearing her family will come to kill her. ''I came here because of a love affair,'' she says with the hint of a smile, beginning a story that is all too common in Iraq. In one sense, Khonja is lucky. She lives in Kurdistan, a part of the country known for its secular-leaning government and active women's rights movement. Nonetheless, that she must live in danger, her future prospects bleak, indicates that even a post-Saddam Hussein government professing a progressive agenda has difficulty tackling conservative tribal society.