Mali Women's Rights Bill Halted

Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure has decided not to sign the country's new family bill into law; instead he sent it back to the parliament for review. The law was protested by Muslim groups.

Some of the provisions that have proved controversial give more rights to women.

For example, under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection.

Women get greater inheritance rights, and the minimum age for girls to marry in most circumstances is raised to 18.

One of the other key points Muslims have objected to is the fact that marriage is defined as a secular institution.

According to BBC, this is a political defeat for President Toure, who was a strong supporter of the bill.

Fighting Poverty by Helping Women

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have written a great article for the New York Times Magazine on the importance of improving the lives of women and girls in the developing world. It's adapted from their book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank began to proclaim the potential resource that women and girls represent. “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world,” Larry Summers wrote when he was chief economist of the World Bank. Private aid groups and foundations shifted gears as well. “Women are the key to ending hunger in Africa,” declared the Hunger Project. The Center for Global Development issued a major report explaining “why and how to put girls at the center of development.” CARE took women and girls as the centerpiece of its anti-poverty efforts. “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” Goldman Sachs concluded in a 2008 research report that emphasized how much developing countries could improve their economic performance by educating girls.

Read the whole thing.

Event in DC: Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion

I heard about this on the radio this morning:

On Mon., August 24 at 7pm, Woolly Mammoth co-hosts a screening of the acclaimed documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell with a panel discussion to follow. Community Partner co-host organizations include the World Organization for Human Rights USA, InterAction, Peace X Peace, and the Washington, DC Film Society.

At Landmark E Street Cinema (E Street, NW, betw. 10th & 11th). The screening and panel are FREE, but reservations are encouraged at screening@woollymammoth.net

Panel: Dr. Patricia Morris, Exec. Director, Peace X Peace (Moderator), with Piper Hendricks, Int'l. Justice Project Dir, World Organization for Human Rights USA.

Named Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades-old civil war. The women's historic yet unsung achievement finds voice in a narrative that intersperses contemporary interviews, archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia together to recount the experiences and memories of the women who were instrumental in bringing lasting peace to their country.

This is in conjunction with the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company's world premiere of the play "Eclipsed," which is about the lives of five Liberian women during Liberia's civil war.

Moammar Gadhafi, Self-Styled Feminist

You can't make this stuff up. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a speech to more than 700 prominent businesswomen and female politicians in Italy. Among his thoughts:

He brought as an example the fact that in some Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive, but added that it's not up to governments to recognize that right.

"If anything, it's up to her husband, her brothers, or the father to give her permission," Gadhafi said, drawing loud boos from the audience.

"The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States"

(Via The Atlantic)

Researchers have found a strong positive correlation between the physical security of women in a country and state security and peacefulness. "Although these results are preliminary, it is still possible to conclude that the security of women must not be overlooked in the study of state security, especially given that the research questions to be raised and the policy initiatives to be considered in the promotion of security will differ markedly if the security of women is seriously considered as a significant influence on state security."