Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/cyrille-cartier/)
When a university student started helping refugees by offering them tea and blankets and playing with the children, male classmates asked strange questions. “Are you expecting to be rewarded for that? Are you going to get money?”
Most survivors who applied for compensation, including legal aid, medical insurance and rehabilitation, are still waiting for the decision. Implementation of the new law is slower than many would like and will determine how many more survivors will come forward.
Speed is the name of the game for refugees going through Croatia and heading to the Hungarian or Slovenian border. But as winter nears, that’s particularly hard on women and children coping with inadequate food, sanitation and safety.
A long-overdue law guaranteeing reparations for wartime rape that passed on May 29 is cause for celebration. But the challenges in drafting and passing it could portend difficulty in widespread implementation, set to begin this fall.
The Iraqi premiere of the play “Nine Parts of Desire” by Heather Raffo opened painful war memories. For players, the playwright and the audience it was a chance to face the past together, in a safe place, and share the benefits of healing catharsis.
Croatian women over 50 and those of childbearing age are having a tough time finding work in an economy saddled with a jobless rate of over 17 percent. Two women from either end of the age spectrum talk about the job bias they live with.
Many of the approximately 100 women’s rights groups that formed in China around the time of the landmark 1995 U.N. women’s rights conference in Beijing lag in their use of new media. Several activists say tools like Twitter and social networks are essential to shaping public opinion and improving the perception and status of women in China.
Croatia’s war ended in 1995 but soldiers who returned home with post-traumatic stress never received adequate assistance. One group of veterans’ wives took it upon themselves to help form 11 centers to help families cope.
As Kosovo hotly debates its political future many women with breast cancer here say they are getting fed up. They want to draw more public attention to substandard treatments and facilities, widespread ignorance, corruption and cultural stigma.
For the last several months, civil society and women’s rights groups in Iraqi Kurdistan have been contributing to the drafting of a regional constitution that some hope will be better for women than the national version.