Development Gateway Foundation
dgCommunities: Gender and Development
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender?intcmp=911
August 28, 2006
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1. NEW! HIGHLIGHT: : Women as Commodities - Economic Empowerment Can
Prevent Sexual Slavery
Significant Purposes
2. RESOURCES
3. MEMBER DIRECTORY: Update Your Profile for Networking &
Collaboration
4. DISTRIBUTE YOUR CONTENT
5. VIRTUAL CONSULTATION FOR INTER-AMERICAN MINISTERIAL MEETING ON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
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1. NEW HIGHLIGHT: "Women as Commodities - Economic Empowerment Can
Prevent Sexual Slavery"
Although two millennia have passed since women, as part of the spoils
of war, were sold into slavery like cattle in public auctions - the
situation has not changed greatly in many parts of the world. Girls
and women, willfully and with full cognizance of the consequences -
continue to be sold into different forms of slavery, often by their own
fathers, brothers, and husbands.
Young girls in Thailand serve the tourism and sex industry even before
they have reached puberty. Poor farmers in Nepal sell their daughters
to procurers who supply girls to the brothels of Bombay and Calcutta.
Men in the guise of promising a "better life" to young women dupe parents
in rural and impoverished India into allowing them to be escorted into
the cities - straight into domestic labor or prostitution.
International trafficking of girls and young women from the former Soviet
Union for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a thriving international
business.
The value of the global trade in women as commodities for sex
industries is more than 10-12 billion dollars annually. Poor women from
developing countries are extremely vulnerable to trafficking, smuggling and
sexual exploitation because they are weak and have no economic status in
society - nor the education and empowerment to stand up for their
rights. With no money, no family support and nowhere to go - they are hapless
and helpless victims. To make matters worse, the dream of earning
money - even by selling their bodies - lures women into the trap very
easily.
Laws and policing mechanisms across countries have too many loopholes
to make effective rescue and rehabilitation possible. The perpetrators
are seldom caught or punished and organized crime thrives on sex slavery
and "girl trade". How can such a gross violation of human rights be
contained? One of Interpol's main tools for helping police fight this type
of crime is the Interpol Child Abuse Image Database (ICAID). Created in
2001, it contains hundreds of thousands of images of child sexual abuse
submitted by member countries, thereby facilitating the sharing of
images and information to assist law enforcement agencies with the
identification of new victims. Organizations like the Angel Coalition in Russia
run Trafficking Victim Assistance Centers, Toll-free Help Lines and
Rescue Repatriation Global Databases.
More than anything else, however, governments must involve women in
political leadership and empower them to be economically independent so
that they do not have to be sold or sell themselves. At the same time,
families must be motivated into educating their girls and letting them
take charge of their lives. When women have a say in managing their
lives, they will be free of the chains of slavery.
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2. RESOURCES
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- Trafficking in Human Beings ? Interpol's Intervention
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1070969?intcmp=911
- Trafficking From Russia and the CIS ? History and Trends
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1070960?intcmp=911
- The Angel Coalition ? Russia
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1070954?intcmp=911
- ECPAT International ? Working Against the Sexual Exploitation of
Children
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1071030?intcmp=911
- Women in Parliament ? Beyond Numbers Handbook
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do~1070980?intcmp=911
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. NEW MEMBER DIRECTORY - UPDATE YOUR MEMBER PROFILE!
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With over 30,000 registered dgCommunities members, the Member Directory
provides a one-stop shop for key contacts and collaboration worldwide.
We invite you to take advantage of this unprecedented collaborative
tool and add your profile today!
Our new Member Directory enables you to more easily contact fellow
professionals in the international development community for expert advice,
information, and collaboration. You will be able to find development
practitioners from over 200 countries, with interests and expertise in
dozens of areas, including your own! We invite you to update your member
profile to let your colleagues in development know more about your
interests and expertise. You'll find the profiles very useful when using
the Member Directory to communicate and collaborate with fellow members
on your next program or project. From
http://www.developmentgateway.org?intcmp=911 simply click on "My
Gateway" in the upper right corner, log in, scroll down to "My Member
Profile" and click "edit this information."
Quick Start - 4 Easy Steps:
-ESTABLISH YOUR PROFILE
Let your colleagues in development know more about your interests and
expertise through your dgCommunities profile. Simply log in, go to My
Gateway, scroll down to "My Member Profile", and click "Edit this
information".
http://www.developmentgateway.org/topics/um/user/showUserAccount.do?intcmp=911
-SEARCH FOR MEMBERS
Log in to the Development Gateway, and click the Member Directory link
located in the right column on any dgCommunity home page. You can
search by: name, country, interest, expertise, organization, organization
type, or by keywords in member bios. Search Results will show you a list
of members with a link to their profiles. You can also reach the Member
Directory when you log in, go to My Gateway and click on "Add Members
to My Contacts".
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/um~user/showMemberDirectory.do?intcmp=911
-COMMUNICATE WITH MEMBERS
When viewing a member's profile, click "Contact this user". This will
open a message box in which you can type and send a message through our
message forwarding system.
-CREATE OWN CONTACT LIST OF MEMBERS
You can build a list of key contacts and form your own network of
members. Searching for members will produce a results list; you can then
select members to be added to your "My Contacts" list by clicking on the
plus sign under "Status" for each desired contact. Or, when viewing a
particular member's profile, click "Add this member to My Contacts". Your
full "My Contacts" list can be viewed when you log in, go to My
Gateway, scroll down to "My Contacts" and click "View My Contacts."
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4. DISTRIBUTE YOUR CONTENT
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Have knowledge resources you want to share with the community, such as
websites, reports or presentations? Want to raise awareness AND drive
traffic to your website? You can accomplish both of them by adding
content to the Development Gateway in dgCommunities. It's easy: simply go to
http://topics.developmentgateway.org?intcmp=911 , click on the topic
most related to your content, and click "Add Content Here" located in
the middle of the page. Links to approved content are sent by e-mail
alerts to registered members--an effective way to share knowledge and
direct traffic to your website!
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5. VIRTUAL CONSULTATION FOR INTER-AMERICAN MINISTERIAL MEETING ON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
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dgCommunities members are invited to share their views in a virtual
consultation forum with civil society and indigenous peoples sponsored by
the Government of Bolivia and the Organization of American States, and
in cooperation with the Development Gateway Foundation. The forum will
address sustainable development issues. A summary of comments will be
presented by the OAS to the First Inter-American Meeting of Ministers
and High-Level Authorities on Sustainable Development, to be held in
Bolivia on October 5-6.
To participate in the consultation in English:
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/environment/discussion/
showDiscussion.do~id=1441?intcmp=911
To participate in the consultation in Spanish:
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/environment/discussion/
showDiscussion.do~id=1461?intcmp=911
To explore similar collaborative opportunities with the Development
Gateway, please contact us at partners@dgfoundation.org
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DID YOU KNOW??
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As a member of the dgCommunity on Gender and Development you can share
your knowledge resources (e.g., websites, papers, reports,
presentations, images, news, events, etc) in just about any format including
streaming audio and video. Each resource will be described on a unique
interactive page that will acknowledge you as the contributor and link to
your profile. To view full text of knowledge resources, users will follow
links to host websites, which will benefit from increased traffic from
the Development Gateway community!
Simply click on the "Add content here" hyperlink at:
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/
Contribute.do~flag=url~from=SampleLayout?intcmp=911
Thank you!
Anuradha Bhattacharjee
Email: gender@dgfoundation.org
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender?intcmp=911
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