Ontario amends Human Rights Code to extend protections to transgender people

BY KEITH LESLIE, CANADIAN PRESS JUNE 13, 2012

TORONTO — Ontario’s Human Rights Code was updated Wednesday for the first time since the 1980s to extend protections to transgender people, something Manitoba was expected to do Thursday.

Members of all three parties in Ontario’s legislature voted to amend the code to add the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” to prevent discrimination against transgender people.

It was the first change to the code since it was amended to add the words “sexual orientation” to protect gays and lesbians.

New Democrat Cheri DiNovo, who tried for six years to amend the code with three previous private member’s bills, called the vote historic, and said it would prevent discrimination against transgender people looking for a job or a place to live.

“A long time coming, but it’s a very good day,” a beaming DiNovo told reporters after the vote.

“There’s a whole host of things that will be opened up for trans people because of this, and really this recognizes them simply as humans, with all the rights of every other human in Ontario.”

A similar amendment to Manitoba’s Human Rights Code to include gender identity was expected to pass into law Thursday.

The Ontario legislation was called Toby’s Act, in honour of the late musician Toby Dancer, who led the choir at the Toronto United Church where DiNovo was a minister before she became a member of provincial parliament.

A large percentage of transgender people attempt suicide and nearly half live below the poverty line, which DiNovo said shows they are a marginalized and vulnerable community in need of the same protections from discrimination as everyone else.

Liberal Yasir Naqvi, a co-sponsor of the all-party bill, said politicians thought they had covered all the bases when they amended the code in the 1980s to protect homosexuals.

“We thought at that time that by just adding “sexual orientation” we were covering all kinds of people, but we recognized soon after that was not the case, that we had excluded members of the trans community,” Naqvi told the legislature during third reading debate.

“Today, we’re taking that very important historic step forward by adding gender identity and gender expression ... so that no human being is left outside the scope, the protection, of the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

Deputy Progressive Conservative Leader Christine Elliott, the other co-sponsor, said DiNovo’s persistence on the issue helped persuade her colleagues about the need to protect transgender people.

“We have been educated in this process, and we have a much deeper understanding of some of the things that people in the trans community go through,” Elliott told the legislature.

“That’s why we’re here today, to make sure that we amend our Human Rights Code to properly reflect the need to protect the rights of everyone in our society, and that’s what this is all about.”

DiNovo credited the fact Ontario now has a minority government that makes it easier to get opposition bills brought forward for debate for her success in finally getting Toby’s Act passed into law.

“This shows minority government working as I think the electorate wants it to work, which is to work together,” she said.

Ontario is the first major jurisdiction in North America to provide human rights protections for transgender people. The Northwest Territories passed a similar bill, and DiNovo expects other provinces and American states to soon follow suit.

“The reality is this is very exciting, and I’m already getting calls from New York state, from North Carolina, so hopefully it starts a wave of moves across jurisdictions for trans,” said DiNovo.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Source:http://www.canada.com/news/Ontario+amends+Human+Rights+Code+extend+protections+transgender+people/6776765/story.html

WHAT IS GENOCIDE?

THE TERM "GENOCIDE"

The term "genocide" did not exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the US Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.

In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of the European Jews. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, theInternational Military Tribunal held at Nuremberg, Germany,charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.

THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as:

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944-1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (1991-1998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.

"This article is taken from the website of 'United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" for detail information on Genocide Studies you can refer to http://www.ushmm.org

Genocide in Rwanda

In 1994, Rwanda’s population of seven million was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu (approximately 85%), Tutsi (14%) and Twa (1%). In the early 1990s, Hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures. Tutsi civilians were also accused of supporting a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Through the use of propaganda and constant political maneuvering, Habyarimana, who was the president at the time, and his group increased divisions between Hutu and Tutsi by the end of 1992. The Hutu remembered past years of oppressive Tutsi rule, and many of them not only resented but also feared the minority.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down. Violence began almost immediately after that. Under the cover of war, Hutu extremists launched their plans to destroy the entire Tutsi civilian population. Political leaders who might have been able to take charge of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremist plans were killed immediately. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. It is estimated that some 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the Rwandan genocide.

In the weeks after April 6, 1994, 800,000 men, women, and children perished in the Rwandan genocide, perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were murdered because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

The Rwandan genocide resulted from the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few power holders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would reinstate the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its authority to carry out the massacre.

The civil war and genocide only ended when the Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the RPF, defeated the Hutu perpetrator regime and President Paul Kagame took control.

Although the Rwandans are fully responsible for the organization and execution of the genocide, governments and peoples elsewhere all share in the shame of the crime because they failed to prevent and stop this killing campaign.

Policymakers in France, Belgium, and the United States and at the United Nations were aware of the preparations for massive slaughter and failed to take the steps needed to prevent it. Aware from the start that Tutsi were being targeted for elimination, the leading foreign actors refused to acknowledge the genocide. Not only did international leaders reject what was going on, but they also declined for weeks to use their political and moral authority to challenge the legitimacy of the genocidal government. They refused to declare that a government guilty of exterminating its citizens would never receive international assistance. They did nothing to silence the radio that televised calls for slaughter. Even after it had become indisputable that what was going on in Rwanda was a genocide, American officials had shunned the g-word, fearing that it would cause demands for intervention.

When international leaders finally voiced disapproval, the genocidal authorities listened well enough to change their tactics although not their ultimate goal. Far from cause for satisfaction, this small success only highlights the tragedy: if weak protests produced this result in late April, imagine what might have been the result if in mid-April the entire world had spoken out.

source:http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm

Forty-eight women raped every hour in Congo, study finds

Research shows 12% of the country's women have been raped at least once, and the crisis is not confined to conflict areas

• Jo Adetunji
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 May 2011 16.39 BST

A rape victim in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The scale of rape has led some to define the conflict as "a war against women". Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

About 48 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congoevery hour, a study has claimed.

The study, due to be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, found sexual abuse was rampant not only in conflict areas but also in the home, with nearly one woman subjected to some form of sexual abuse every minute.

The DRC has been racked by war, with rapes widely documented in theconflict-hit east of the country. However, the study suggests the problem is bigger and more pervasive than previously thought, and goes further in documenting domestic sexual abuse.

It found 1,152 women are raped every day – a rate equal to 48 per hour. That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.

"Not only is sexual violence more generalised, but our findings suggest that future policies and programmes should focus on abuse within families," the study's researchers said.

The study, carried out by three public health researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute at Stony Brook University in New York, and the World Bank, was partly financed by the US government and based on figures from a nationwide household survey of 3,436 Congolese women aged 15 to 49 in 2007.

The figures showed 12% of women had been raped at least once and 3% of women across the country were raped between 2006 and 2007. About 22% had also been forced by their partners to have sex or perform sexual acts against their will. The study also revealed alarming levels of sexual abuse in the capital, Kinshasa.

The UN has called the country the centre of rape as a weapon of war. Commentators have also described Congo as the worst place on Earth to be a woman.

Over the past 15 years, civilians have been drawn into the conflict, which has been driven by a weak government and rich mineral resources, often in remote, forest-covered areas.

The highest levels of rape were found in North Kivu, an eastern province ravaged by conflict, where nearly 7% of women were raped at least once between 2006 and 2007, according to the study.

Comprehensive statistics on rape in the DRC have been difficult to collate, although widespread anecdotal evidence has been collected on atrocities.

There have been many reports and witness accounts of the gang rape of young girls and elderly women by armed militia, and also accounts of men being raped. Because of the stigma of rape, many married women find themselves abandoned by their husbands.

"There are two big surprises in the study," said Anthony Gambino, a former mission director for the US Agency for International Development in the Congo.

"First, the magnitude of the problem – rates of rape that are much higher than seen elsewhere. And second, that these alarming, shockingly high rape statistics are found in western Congo as well as northern and eastern Congo."

Gambino said 40 years of "steady economic and political decline" may explain the high incidence of rape in the DRC.

While the authors have extrapolated their figures to show that as many as 1.8 million women out of the country's population of 70 million people have been raped, with up to 433,785 raped in a one-year period, some have urged more caution in the interpretation of the figures and their date.

Michael VanRooyen, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which has sent doctors to Congo to treat rape victims, said there were "some limitations in the methodology, such as the sampling methods and the sample sizes" of the new rape study.

But, he said, "the important message remains: that rape and sexual slavery have become amazingly commonplace in this region of the DRC and have defined this conflict as a war against women".

However, Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who specialises in gender-based violence, said that because the figures were collected during face-to-face interviews – where women could be less forthcoming – the figures could be much higher.

Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative for sexual violence in conflict, said the figures in the study were higher than the UN's because they covered all sexual violence, including domestic and by known partners.

She said UN figures tended to be conservative because they had to be verified by the UN itself. "The number of reported violations are just the tip of the iceberg of actual incidents," she added.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/12/48-women-raped-hour-congo

White far-right extremism – A sudden volcanic erruption in Norway

What happened in Norway still shook me to the core. Still not able understand WHY?

This is becoming a common tendency of delinquent youths (?) mostly in developed countries. I have been studying about Anders (Anders Behring Breivik) from last 3 days and following up on the issue.

Is this really an act to check multi-culturalism in Norway or to free Europe from immigrants by 2083 or to protect Christianity?
He posted his online 1,516-page manifesto titled, "2083 – A European Declaration of Independence', to around 5300 people, published on the day of the attacks. This is indicative of his well-organized approach towards horrifying act. He, in his manifesto also appreciated the superior organizational structure of -al-Qaeda- and commented that "If Muhammad was alive today; Usama Bin Laden would have been his second in command." Balancing the same tone , he further stated himself as "a real European hero", "the savior of Christianity" and "the greatest defender of cultural-conservatism in Europe since 1950".

Now the greatest question for us is – “ Should we take it as a normal act of crime or go little deeper and try to understand the psychology behind it ? ”

History is flooded with bloody racial massacres. World has changed but we must admit that we are still the same in certain areas of human behabhiour.when it comes to religion, race , color etc. we become ‘cacophonus’. Norway massacre is just an another example of it. Killing of a Indian student in a country of “so-called superior race” and drawing a swastik sign near his body signifies what ??? Isn’t it same as what Hitler did and made mankind shame ???

As long as my thinking is concern I can never accpet the Masscre of Norway is a one man show by Anders in real sesnse.A well organisation approach,a full proof plan and without a proper comman this would not have been possible to executive in such a finest (??) manner. If this is so , than the day is close when the world will agin suffer from racial agonies.

The number of incidents of far right extrimism in different parts of the world in the recent past is not something to be ignored. The rate of world population migration in last 2 decades is remarkable. The mixing up of cultures, religions, values and at the same time the fear of losing the real existence & identity of the “People of welcoming soil” surprisingly gives birth to the so-called “saviors " like Anders Behring Breivik.

I really don't know why and when & how did I get involved to this issue so deeply. May be I know something is there which is of extremely serious nature and it has not yet emerged to the world as an open threat. When suspicion becomes a reality it eventually becomes an eye opener to look carefully towards the future.

May time prevent the re-emerge of The Klan (Ku Klux Klan/ KKK).

The world is already sick enough!!!