Engendering an Equitable Society
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Oxfam ExchangeSPRING/SUMMER 2004 ENGENDERING AN EQUITABLE SOCIETY R VICTORY: NEW RIGHTS FOR R SALVADORAN POLICE CRACK DOWN WOMEN IN MOZAMBIQUE ON SEXUAL HARRASSMENT R A SAVINGS PROGRAM TO BANK ON R WEST AFRICAN WOMEN MEDIATE PEACE 3 RIGHT NOW: COURAGEOUS COMMITMENT 4 LETTERS ents 5 EMERGENCIES: RWANDA & HAITI OXFAM EXCHANGE Volume 4, Number 2 Spring 2004 6 OXFAM IN THE NEWS CYNTHIA PHOEL Managing Editor 7 BRIDGING THE GENDER GAP CHRIS HUFSTADER R cont Mozambique’s Gender Revolution KEVIN PEPPER SUDHA KOTHA R Pulling Their Own Purse Strings NATHANIEL RAYMOND Writers R Policing Gender Violence in El Salvador JEFF DEUTSCH Senior Graphic Designer R Waging Peace in West Africa KELLEY DAMORE Editor-in-Chief 14 ONLINE EXCLUSIVES MAIN OFFICE 26 West Street Boston, MA 02111-1206 USA 800/77-OXFAM 15 2003 ANNUAL REPORT SUMMARY [email protected] WASHINGTON OFFICE 1112 16th St. NW Washington, DC 20036 USA [email protected] OXFAM AMERICA BOARD OF DIRECTORS Register to vote at www.YourVoteMatters.org! Barbara D. Fiorito Chair A simple reminder of butterfly ballots and hanging chads helps us Raymond C. Offenheiser realize that every vote truly does count. Yet, in the 2000 Presidential President election, only half of those of voting age did vote, according to the Akwasi Aidoo Federal Election Commission. Fast forward four years: with six months to go, Chester Atkins L. David Brown the presidential race is already neck and neck. Have you registered to vote? David Bryer John Calmore Working Assets, in conjunction with Oxfam America and other non-profits, is Michael Carter Susan Clare launching a non-partisan campaign to register one million voters for the 2004 David Doniger James Down election. At www.YourVoteMatters.org, you can register to vote, send Bennett Freeman reminders to friends and family who may not be registered, or volunteer for Bradley J. Greenwald Kate Greswold the campaign. Kapil Jain Jennifer Leaning Visit www.YourVoteMatters.org. Stand up and be counted! Janet McKinley Peter C. Munson Mary Racelis John Riggan Margaret Samuriwo Kitt Sawitsky Magdalena Villarreal Oxfam America is committed to creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice. Correction In the Winter 2004 issue of the Exchange, the building on the cover Oxfam employees are represented by Service Employees International was incorrectly labeled. The building shown was Federal Hall. Union, Local 2020. We apologize for this error. Courageous Commitment w When brave people challenge the power structures and policies that keep them in poverty, they make sacrifices most would never consider. In January 2004, the President of the Confederation of Indigenous People of Ecuador (CONAIE), Leonidas Iza, was attacked by gunmen outside his office. His son threw him to the ground, took the bullets intended for his father, and was hospitalized for over a month. Oxfam staff around the world were shocked by the news. CONAIE is well respected in Ecuador and plays a key role in promoting indigenous peoples’ rights. Oxfam America has supported CONAIE since 1986. right no Over the past few months, two other indigenous leaders in Ecuador have been detained or beaten, and several more have had their offices ransacked. While no one has taken responsibility for these attacks, the leaders believe they are being targeted for criticizing President Lucio Gutierrez’s recent policy shifts, which include the prioritization of oil exports from indigenous territories to pay off debt. Oxfam partners take enormous risks to make essential, positive changes in their societies. Dangerous though their work may be, giving up threatens their very sur- vival. Every day, human rights investigators in Zimbabwe, indigenous activists in Bolivia, environmentalists in Cambodia, and committed workers in many other places make huge personal sacrifices to improve the prospects for people suffer- ing injustices. Some make the ultimate sacrifice. In the last year, seven labor organizers in Honduras have been killed. One was a member of an Oxfam-fund- ed coffee cooperative who was particularly vocal about government inaction in the face of the current coffee-price crisis. And four staff members of the Oxfam- funded Organization for Mine Clearance and Awareness in Afghanistan were murdered on a remote road in eastern Afghanistan, part of a series of incidents in which nine aid workers were targeted and killed over an 11-day period. Even as we remember those who have died, we are aware these cases are not just about individuals, but the movements they represent. Just as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and civil rights movement in this country were big- ger than Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr., so too are our partners working to influence major—and imperative—social changes. Oxfam’s solidarity with our partners goes beyond advice and funding. They depend on us to inform you of their struggle for a better future. Our partners tell us their relationship with Oxfam and our supporters is a source of strength. “Knowing we are behind them helps give them the courage to move forward, seek change, and create opportunity,” said Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser. Just as knowing of our partners’ work inspires all of us to do more. To email Ecuador’s ambassador and push for an investigation into the attacks on indigenous leaders, visit http://ga0.org/campaign/ecuador. CHANGE AM EX XF O 3 Your article on coffee prices I really enjoyed your article [“Coffee Talk”] is interesting, about how we can make a dif- Write to us! We welcome readers’ comments and ideas. but if coffee prices are at an ference [“Power in Your Please include your name and address and ers all-time low, supply must Pocket”]. I think this is the first mail to: exceed demand. If so, coffee time I have seen something growers should consider farm- like this, and I appreciate Editor, Oxfam Exchange Oxfam America ing different crops. “Fair trade” knowing methods to help in a 26 West Street is a remnant of the Depression way that I can actually handle. lett Boston, MA 02111-1206 era! Perhaps…Oxfam [could] Thanks! Send email to [email protected] help coffee farmers learn other Carol Boyd or fax to 617-728-2596. We will print as trades. RICHFIELD, OH many letters as possible, but reserve the Moreover, your comment that right to edit for space and clarity. P&G has done little to work with the rest of the industry to Congratulations on Oxfam Maintaining strong local food get others to buy fair trade cof- helping the migrant workers systems and ensuring a decent fee ignores US antitrust laws. It [“American Slave Wages”]. livelihood for farmers and farm- might well be a violation for This is an important issue: to workers are important, in the the large roasters to agree to make sure our farm workers are US as well as other countries. We such action. fairly paid and treated. So I are not against farm subsidies don’t understand why you are per se—just those subsidies that C. Davis against farm subsidies that go encourage dumping products to farmers to keep many of below market price in other them in the middle-class. To countries and drive poor farmers Interesting the advances on the me, this is tax money well out of business. The US could be coffee front [“Coffee Talk”]. A spent. Remember also that subsidizing healthy rural areas, good place to push. Keep such countries as Japan heavily rather than profits for a few. going. You're going to pay subsidize their farmers. The Between 1995 and 2002, 10 per- $3.00 for a coffee, so pay $3.25 reason is practical: To make cent of the largest-subsidized US and provide the growers a sure they have at least some producers collected 71 percent of decent wage. (Just make sure food home-grown. In an age of all subsidies. The EU has the extra $0.25 gets to them. uncertainty and terrorism, this already begun shifting agricul- Maybe some verification makes all the more sense. tural payments into support would be good?) Can you for stewardship of natural enjoy your coffee knowing that D.A. White resources—helping farmers stay it was grown by a destitute PEMBROKE PINES, FL on their land without depressing farmer? Would you rather he market prices. grow drug crops to make more income? For more on farmworker rights, download Oxfam America’s Bob Walsh report, Like Machines in the Fields: Workers Without Rights in American SAN DIEGO, CA Fields, from www.oxfamamerica.org/exchange_spring04. CHANGE AM EX XF O 4 Remembering Rwanda s April 7th marked the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were slaugh- tered in eight weeks. In response to the resulting refugee crisis, Oxfam launched the largest emergency operation in its history. Between 1994 and 1997, Oxfam provided water, sanitation, and hygiene supplies for millions of displaced people in and around Rwanda. AM gencie Oxfam was the first aid organization to refer to the situation in XF Rwanda as genocide, demanding that the international com- ALE/O munity intervene militarily. Ultimately, the response that was AMI VIT needed from the UN never happened. While killing on the scale of Rwanda’s genocide has not occurred since 1994, Oxfam applies some of the Tutsi genocide survivor Ronald Rugemintwari in his home in emer critical lessons we learned from the genocide to help address the human rights viola- Cyembogo, Rwanda. Oxfam tions and armed conflicts that still kill or displace thousands of people each year: continues to help Rwandans reconstruct their communities R It is important to analyze the context of an emergency and to deliver aid that and prevent conflict.