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

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

Another story of hatred.

Congo Soldier's perception of "Rape" as a weapon- Shame

Understanding "World Peace Day" - September 21

Peace for All -All for Peace

The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. It was established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982.

In 2002 the General Assembly officially declared September 21 as the permanent date for the International Day of Peace.By creating the International Day of Peace, the UN devoted itself to worldwide peace and encouraged all of mankind to work in cooperation for this goal. During the discussion of the U.N. Resolution that established the International Day of Peace, it was suggested that:

"Peace Day should be devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples…This day will serve as a reminder to all peoples that our organization, with all its limitations, is a living instrument in the service of peace and should serve all of us here within the organization as a constantly pealing bell reminding us that our permanent commitment, above all interests or differences of any kind, is to peace."

Since its inception, Peace Day has marked our personal and planetary progress toward peace. It has grown to include millions of people in all parts of the world, and each year events are organized to commemorate and celebrate this day. Events range in scale from private gatherings to public concerts and forums where hundreds of thousands of people participate.

Anyone, anywhere can celebrate Peace Day. It can be as simple as lighting a candle at noon, or just sitting in silent meditation. Or it can involve getting your co-workers, organization, community or government engaged in a large event. The impact if millions of people in all parts of the world, coming together for one day of peace, is immense.

International Day of Peace is also a Day of Ceasefire – personal or political. Take this opportunity to make peace in your own relationships as well as impact the larger conflicts of our time. Imagine what a whole Day of Ceasefire would mean to humankind.

(internationaldayofpeace.org)