Day 16 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 16

International Human Rights Day

"Discrimination targets individuals and groups that are vulnerable to attack: the disabled, women and girls, the poor, migrants, minorities, and all those who are perceived as different ... But these victims of discrimination are not alone. The United Nations is standing with them, committed to defending the rights of all, and particularly the most vulnerable. That is our identity and our mission."[1]

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

The theme of International Human Rights Day 2009 is non-discrimination. As the 16 days of action series has shown, discrimination places women and girls at a higher risk of violence. That is, discrimination and the risk of violence are more acute when taking into consideration HIV and AIDS, poverty, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, religion or creed, class, etc.

For the past 16 days, the Global Sisterhood has touched on various stories and issues related to Gender Violence and yet there is still so much left to say. It is important for us to acknowledge, also, the work being done every day by activists, both women and men, around the world to stop gender violence in their societies. Whether at the community level or the national level, these efforts are critical. They defend our human rights and often face threats, violence, and death for doing so. They remind us that ALL human beings have human rights and that when these rights are taken from us, we must resist.

[1] United Nations. "Non-discrimination is focus of Human Rights Day, 10 December."
http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/2009/

Day 13 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 13

The following piece was written by a very close friend in Vancouver. It speaks to many of the issues brought up in yesterday's post and presents other very important points. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how we frame the role of men in violence and what we can do to improve this. The reason this is so critical is that if we don't address the ways in which gender violence is socialized, learned, and ascribed, we risk that we will continue to fight the same battle over and over again. I have much more to say on this issue, but I'd like to step aside for today and let someone else, whose opinion I highly respect and value, have her say.

On Violence Against Women
 
by K. Darch

It has been twenty years since fourteen women were shot and killed by Marc Lépine at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal on Dec 6th, 1989. It’s now 2009, and former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, has said that violence against women is the most pervasive and destructive human rights violation facing the world today.

I grew up post-Montreal massacre on a military base in Kingston, Ontario, with the prospect of voting and going to university, but daily life played out in an atmosphere of the constant threat of sexist violence from male peers. Like many people, I had the impression that the Montreal massacre was the random act of a mad man. I never heard that in his suicide note, Marc Lépine had a list of other well-known Canadian feminists, and I had never understood the event to be a politically motivated strike against an ideology that moves myself and other women closer to equality.

The recent shootings at the LA Fitness Centre in Pennsylvania, the shooting of a mother, daughter and granddaughter by a husband in Alberta, and the murder by drowning of three teenage girls and their father's first wife in Kingston this summer preceded a similar response. The men were under financial pressure, they were racist, or they were “just plain crazy.” While these are often factors, what connects these killings is that in all of these instances it was women who were killed by men. To say the men are crazy is to exceptionalize them, in a world where violence against women is not the exception but the norm.

On average, a woman is murdered in Canada every week at the hands of her intimate male partner - this year, more than 30 women have been killed by their intimate partners in Canada, and a record of 69 wives were murdered by husbands across Canada in 2007. In North America today, the amount of men killed in firefighting, policing, and in war is still five times less that the amount of women murdered by their spouses.

Many of the perpetrators of male violence are fathers, husbands, roommates, and bosses. If they’re just bad apples, it seems that these apples are growing from the same tree. Twenty years later, we still live in a system of society and government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it, and violence against women is the most harmful result of this power imbalance. Everyone needs to act, because in the city, in the country, globally, other social issues cannot be solved until we address women’s inequality.

My limited understanding of the Montreal massacre and the fact that I didn’t link it to misogyny, or in any way to myself, shows how successful the general silencing about the aspect of misogyny in this event was - the same kind of silencing that women face when they speak out about their experiences with sexual assault and battery.

What are some of the ways we can make systemic change? By fighting for a guaranteed livable income, better policing of violence against women, funding for women’s equality groups, and supporting women of colour formations worldwide. These conditions are transformable. We need to remember, but we also need to resist.

Day 12 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 12

National Day of Remembrance and Action
to End Violence Against Women

Over the past week I have read numerous articles and watched footage on the massacre of 14 women at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989. I have examined my own memories and feelings, and asked others to share their memories.

Yesterday I spoke with my best friend and asked her about her memories of the Montreal massacre. Like me, she does not remember her reaction to the news on Dec. 6, 1989, but she does have a strong memory of the 10th anniversary and the profound impact it had on her. In 1999, she was studying mechanical engineering at Carleton University. She told me that as she read about the students killed at L’École Polytechnique she noticed how similar she was to them. Half of the women killed that day were mechanical engineering students. Many were preparing to graduate. She told told me:

"It was so much more personal than just reading about these women. I realized it could have been me."

In many of the interviews that I listened to today on CBC Radio One, journalists and other people on the scene that day remarked on the sense of disbelief that many people had. One journalist commented:

"The shock sort of grew bigger when I found out that he had killed only women. I did not want to believe it. I was in total denial."

In the hours, days, week, months and years that followed, the theme of disbelief and denial persisted. People insisted that it was a random act of violence by a madman, that it did not have a greater meaning or significance than this. Others, like the journalist quoted above, overcame the shock and realized that this was a targetted and premeditated attack against women. The fact that Marc Lépine did not personally know his victims is not the point; he murdered them because they were women studying in what was, at that time, a male dominated field. In the weeks prior to the shooting, he purchased a semi-automatic rifle and visited the school several times.

At approximately 5:10pm on December 6, he interrupted a mechanical engineering class at L’École Polytechnique and ordered the women and men to separate to opposite sides of the classroom. At first, the students thought he was joking and no one moved. Lépine fired a shot in the air and ordered the approximately 50 men in the class to leave. Nine women remained. He asked them if they knew why they were there. One student replied 'no'. He told them he was fighting feminism. Natalie Provost, a student in the class, responded that they were not feminists. "We are just women who study engineering." Lépine replied "You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists," and he opened fire, killing six women and wounding three others [1]. Natalie Provost survived the attack. In a recent interview with the Globe and Mail, she was asked about what she said to Marc Lépine. here is what she had to say:

"In 1989, feminism to me was a movement of women fighting to make sure women had the same rights as men. But as a woman, I never felt I needed to struggle; I believed doors were wide open for me. I used to see feminism as a conflict between men and women, but it's not that for me now. ... It's making sure women have an equal chance." [2]

That Marc Lépine's chose to identify the female engineering students at L’École Polytechnique was not at all random. Attached to the suicide note he wrote was a list of 19 prominent women that Lépine identified as 'radical feminists' that he had intended to kill, but was not able to. Journalist, Francine Pelletier, was one of those women. I listened to her on CBC radio this morning. She said very interesting things about Marc Lépine, that I thought was worth sharing here:

"It was not just women he was targetting. He was targetting progress."

She also commented how the examiners and investigators determined that Marc Lépine "was not criminally insane". People may describe him as behaving 'zombie-like', 'deranged', and 'crazy', but that he had a clear motive and that he had devoted a great deal of thought to what he was doing is undeniable. In the words of Francine Pelletier: "It was hatred of women . . . It was hatred of feminists." And, as she also stated during her interview, "denying the meaning of this is as hurtful as what happened that day." I have to agree. Denying that this was an act of hatred and violence against women and against feminism, against progress, is like saying that those women died for no reason, that their deaths were random. Marc Lépine's crime was not random.

When I asked friends for their memories of December 6, 1989, a friend in Vancouver collected an observation from her friend and a former collective member of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, Erin Graham. She said:

"I remember that night so clearly. When we heard it, we were on the third floor, having our weekly meeting about how to run the crisis line. We knew, from the moment we heard of it, that this man had made a political statement against feminists, and that this was about all of us. All of us. And yet, with each passing year, no matter what we did, it seemed that sand sifted over the politic, until it has disappeared from view. Except for those of us who were there, young women now, like you, see these attacks, and are told, over and over, "no, no, it's just that one guy, over there--" and the story disappears in the shifting sands of trivia we're told is news."

I think this relates to what Francine Pelletier's comments about the meaning of that day and other comments related to the sense of denial that I spoke of earlier. I think there's a lot of truth there, especially when it comes to the larger picture of violence against women and girls. It brings to mind the crisis of missing and murdered aboriginal women and the number of women killed every year by their husbands and male partners in Canada. It also makes me think about the proposed elimination of the long gun registry in Canada and how political will too often seems to take precedence over the safety of people.

There's so much more to say about this day, its significance and how it speaks to the larger issue of violence against women in my country, but I think that I will draw this post to a close now with some information about each of the women that were murdered 20 years ago today, followed by a clip of CBC news coverage from December 6, 1989. The following information was obtained from CBC News online.

Geneviève Bergeron, 21, was a second-year scholarship student in civil engineering. She played the clarinet and sang in a professional choir. In her spare time she played basketball and swam.

Hélène Colgan, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and planned to do her master's degree. She had three job offers and was leaning towards accepting o­ne from a company based near Toronto.

Nathalie Croteau, 23, another graduating mechanical engineer, planned to take a two-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico, with Colgan at the end of the month.

Barbara Daigneault, 22, was to graduate at the end of the year. She was a teaching assistant for her father Pierre Daigneault, a mechanical engineering professor with the city's other French-language engineering school at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

Anne-Marie Edward, 21. She loved outdoor sports like skiing, diving and riding and was always surrounded with friends.

Maud Haviernick, 29, was a second-year student in engineering materials, a branch of metallurgy, and a graduate in environmental design from the University of Quebec at Montreal.

Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, the oldest of the victims, was a first-year nursing student. She arrived in Montreal from Poland with her husband in 1987.

Maryse Laganière, 25, of Montreal, was the o­nly non-student killed. She worked in the budget department of the engineering school. She had recently married.

Maryse Leclair, 23, in fourth-year metallurgy, had a year to go before graduation and was o­ne of the top students in the school. She acted in plays in junior college. She was the first victim whose name was known and she was found by her father, Montreal police Lieut. Pierre Leclair.

Anne-Marie Lemay, 27, of Montreal, was in fourth-year mechanical engineering.

Sonia Pelletier, 28, was the head of her class and the pride of St-Ulric, Que., her remote birthplace in the Gaspe peninsula. She had five sisters and two brothers. She was killed the day before she was to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. She had a job interview lined up for the following week.

Michèle Richard, 21, of Montreal, was in second-year engineering materials. She was presenting a paper with Haviernick when she was killed.

Annie St-Arneault, 23, a mechanical engineering student from La Tuque, Que., a Laurentian pulp and paper town in the upper St-Maurice river valley, lived in a small apartment in Montreal. Her friends considered her a fine student. She was killed as she sat listening to a presentation in her last class before graduation. She had a job interview with Alcan Aluminium scheduled for the following day. She had talked about eventually getting married to the man who had been her boyfriend since she was a teenager.

Annie Turcotte, 21, of Granby, Que., was in her first year and lived with her brother in a small apartment near the university. She was described as gentle and athletic - she was a diver and a swimmer. She went into engineering so she could o­ne day help improve the environment.
---------

CBC Archives: The Montreal Massacre, 1989 [English]



Archives Radio-Canada: Tragédie à l'école Polytechnique [French / Français]

Sources

[1] Wikipedia. École Polytechnique massacre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre

[2] The Globe and Mail. A survivor speaks.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-survivor-speaks/article1390009/

Additional Information and News CoverageCanadian Press. Victims of Montreal school massacre remembered 15 years later. Dec. 4, 2004

CBC News. Montreal Massacre victims. Dec. 5, 2009

CTV News. Mother of Ecole Polytechnique killer shares her story. Dec. 6, 2009

CTV Ottawa. Montreal massacre remembered at Ottawa vigil. Dec. 6, 2009

La Presse. Polytechnique, 20 ans après: «Quatorze fins du monde», Daphné Cameron. Publié le 06 décembre 2009.

New York Times. Gun Control Issue Reveals a Changing Canada, Ian Austen. Dec. 6, 2009New York Times. Canada Unnerved by Slayings of 14, David E. Pitt. Dec. 6, 1989 [Note: Some parts of the article are not accurate and other parts are a bit 'unnerving'.]

Radio-Canada. Il y a 20 ans, le drame de la Polytechnique. 3 décembre 2009

Toronto Star. Ceremonies mark the 20th anniversary of Montreal massacre. Dec. 6, 2009

Toronto Star. Urgent need to defend gun control, Wendy Cukier. Dec. 6, 2009

Vancouver Observer. Why December 6th Still Matters, Jarrah Hodge. Dec. 2 2009

Vancouver Sun. Massacre recalled on 20th anniversary, Shannon Proudfoot. Dec. 4, 2009

Vancouver Sun. Events nationwide mark the 20th anniversary of Montreal massacre, Marian Scott. Dec. 6, 2009

December 6, 1989

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

The fourteen women, pictured above, were murdered at L' École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989. Most of them were students going about their day, attending classes and studying. Their lives were stolen from them by a 25 year old man, Marc Lépine. He claimed that he was "fighting feminism", but what he was really doing was committing a horrible act of gender violence.

Today I will be posting links, articles, thoughts, comments, and video clips about December 6, 1989 and how we remember this day.

Day 11 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 11

December 6th is a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada because, 20 years ago on this day, 14 women, engineering students, were murdered at at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal. This weekend, people across Canada will gather to remember their murder and other women who have been targets of violence. Tomorrow I will attend a memorial vigil that, I hope, will be widely attended by many others.

We may think, and hope, that something like this could never happen again, that women's presence in all academic programs and disciplines, as well as fields and careers, is accepted. In many ways, women have achieved acceptance, but in other ways we are still the targets of violence in our schools, workplaces, and homes. Sexual violence, sexual harassment, and intimate partner violence remain serious threats to the health, well-being, and lives of many girls and women.

In 2008, Amnesty International released Safe Schools: Every Girl’s Right, a report on violence against girls in and out of school and the violation of the right to education. The report indicates that, in many cases, girls face violence in and around their schools. Nor do these risks cease once they enter university. Although many universities across Canada now have in place security measures for preventing sexual assaults and rape on campus, attacks against female students remain a problem. I recall a case of a brutal sexual assault of a female student on the campus of Carleton University in August 2007. The 23-year old student was working in one of the university's chemistry labs when her attacker, described as a white male in his 20s, entered the lab, beat the young woman unconscious, and sexually assaulted her. I also think, given that many cases of rape are not reported, that incidents of sexual assault and rape on university campuses is much higher than we are aware.

Looking back on the murder of 14 female students at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal 20 years ago, we may want to tell ourselves that women and girls no longer face violence in schools or in the workplace, that things have changed. While it is true that some of us are safer, many girls and women face violence every day - at school, at work, and at home - and we have a duty to address this crisis and strengthen our efforts to end violence.

Days 9 and 10 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Days 9 and 10

I decided to take a day off to think about some issues that I've been muddling over during the past week and plan articles/pieces for the rest of the series. In the meantime, here are some articles and videos that I have benefited from reading over the past week, and others from my collection of bookmarked links on gender and violence. I will be back again tomorrow with another entry for the 16 Days of Activism series. If you have anything you'd like me to add, links to website or articles that you recommend, please post a comment and let me know.

Ruined by “too much” education by Delta Ndou: A very interesting and quotable opinion piece from columnist Delta Ndou in Zimbabwe on GBV and how gender roles and heterosexist attitudes contribute to the perpetuation of intimate partner violence. Although she never uses the term heterosexist, I think it is an accurate way of describing pejorative notions about 'educated women'.

Pambazuka News. 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence: Features a collection testemonies from survivors of violence and a series of articles on GBV. The "I" Stories, in particular, are very moving and shine a spotlight into the lives of women who suffered and escaped from violence.

Amnesty International. Protecting Individuals at Risk: Features cases of human rights defenders, activists, and journalists at risk. I was particularly drawn to the story of human rights defender Justine Masika Bihamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Justine and her family have been targeted by soldiers for her work as the "coordinator of a women's human Rights organization, Synergy of Women Against Sexual Violence (SFVS)."

The New York Times. A Man's World: A video addressing the situation of widows in Afghanistan. Includes enlightening and moving interviews with widows living in a shelter run by the Red Crescent society.

The Independent. Taliban murder leading Afghan female rights activist: An article about the murder of human right's activist Sitara Achakzai in Kandahar, Afghanistan in April of this year. Achakzai "was instrumental in organizing a nationwide sit-in of more than 11,000 women, in seven provinces. The women ‘prayed for peace’ to mark International Women’s Day. " At the tie of her murder, she was planning to leave Afghanistan for some time, fearing for her safety. The tragic story of her death reminds me of the risks that many human rights defenders face in carrying out their work.

Toronto Sun. Women's haven like living 'in hell': Tenants at a YWCA apartment building that provides housing for abused women claim that conditions in the building are not safe such that they, and their children, face "physical attacks, death threats, vandalism and fear." The article highlights a serious issue for organizations that provide services to victims.

Day 8 - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 8

International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

For many people in the West, the term slavery brings to mind the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans in the United States. This is the most common representation of slavery seen in the mainstream media and it portrays an important period in human history which many people consider to have ended with the abolition of the slavery in the United States in 1865 [1]. What many people do not realize is that slavery has continued to exist in many parts of the world, including countries such as Canada, the United States, Britain, and many European nations. Although slavery is illegal, it is still practised through forced labour, worst forms of child labour, and human trafficking, including sex trafficking. Recently, police in Calgary, Alberta arrested and laid charges in two separate human trafficking cases.

Modern Slavery

"Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. The victims are the most vulnerable – women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics and paid little or nothing." [2]

- International Labour Organization

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour [3]. Other organizations, such as Free the Slaves and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, place the total number of enslaved persons in the world today at around 27 million [4]. Women and children are especially vulnerable to modern forms of slavery, in particular human trafficking and sexual slavery, largely as a result of poverty. In particular, gender inequalities and discrimination increase the vulnerability of women and girls to trafficking because of attitudes that view them as the 'property' of men and also as a result of their lack of access to education and employment opportunities.

Many organizations around the world are working with, or without (in some cases), governments to end slavery and rescue victims of human trafficking. Individuals also have a role to play by informing authorities about suspected cases of trafficking. For more information on human trafficking in Canada, visit the RCMP's Frequently Asked Questions on Human Trafficking or the Department of Justice page on human trafficking. Another factor to consider is informing organizations that advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants and refugees, such as No One is Illegal, to ensure that rights of victims of human trafficking are respected and that they do not face deportation.

We ALL have a role to play in ending modern forms of slavery. Watch, look, listen, educate (yourself and others) and support Fair Trade.



The Call + Response trailer may be a good place for people unfamiliar with modern slavery to start.

Sources

[1] Our Documents. 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865).

[2], [3] International Labour Organization (ILO). Forced Labour.

[4] Free the Slaves. Top 10 Facts About Modern Slavery; Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.

Additional Information & Organizations

Call + Response, a documentary exposing the modern slave trade featuring prominent political and cultural figures.

BBC. Modern Slavery: Articles about victims of modern slavery, including victims of human trafficking.

The Abolish Slavery Coalition "brings together the top professionals in the movement to combat slavery and human trafficking to better advocate for the rights of victims."

International

UNIFEM. Trafficking in Women and Girls

UNICEF. Child Protection Information Sheet, Child Labour

United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP). no-trafficking.org

UN.GIFT - Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking

UNFPA. Trafficking in Human Misery.

UNODOC. UNODOC on human trafficking and migrant smuggling

ILO. Forced Labour; Child Labour

In the United States

Free the Slaves

Polaris Project

In Canada

Women Against Slavery

No One is Illegal

Day 7 - World AIDS Day - 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence

Day 7

Gender Violence, HIV and AIDS

December 1st is World AIDS Day. UNAIDS estimates that there are approximately 33.4 million people living with HIV in the world (2008) [1]. Women represent 50% of the number of adults living with HIV and often experience the impact of HIV more severely than men [2]. Women and girls are at greater risk of contracting HIV than men not only as a result of a greater biological susceptibility to the virus, but also because of gender inequalities. Women and girls often lack educational and economic opportunities, which increases their dependence on men and can decrease their involvement in decisions that have a direct impact on their health and well-being. Social and economic dependence can also limit their power to refuse sex or insist on condom use [3]. Additionally, lack of access to education and information, as well as the impact of illiteracy, mean that women and girls are often unaware of how to "protect themselves against HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, which can increase the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS" [4].

Gender violence also makes women and girls more vulnerable to contracting HIV. Women in abusive relationships are less likely to insist their partners use condoms or to refuse sex for fear of violence. Women who do refuse sex are often beaten and raped by their partners and may receive little to no support from their extended family, their communities, and the police. In many societies, the notion of 'conjugal rights' includes the 'duty' of a spouse to honour their partner's 'right' to sex and the concept of marital rape is rejected as a foreign construct. Support services provided for victims of sexual and other forms of violence, through women's centres and health care facilities, play a pivotal role in treating, assisting and counselling women. Unfortunately, these services are not always available in the areas where they are needed most and, in cases where they are available, service providers may face resistance, threats, or violence from within the communities in which they work.

For more more information, facts, and figures on HIV and AIDS visit: www.unaids.org

Sexual Violence and Conflict

“In no other area is our collective failure to ensure effective protection for civilians more apparent — and by its very nature more shameful — than in terms of the masses of women and girls, but also boys and men, whose lives are destroyed each year by sexual violence perpetrated in conflict.” 
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, 2007 (S/2007/643) [5]

Sexual violence in conflict contributes to the spread of HIV among women and girls and has devastated the lives of thousands of women and their families. Rape is used as a weapon of war to "shame and demoralize women, tear communities apart, and control populations" [6]. Women and girls are brutalized in front of their families and communities, forced to witness the brutalization and murder of their loved ones, and taken by combatants to be used as 'sex slaves'. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, between 250'000 and 500'000 women and girls were raped [7] and it is estimated that, of those who survived the genocide, 70% have been infected with HIV [8]. More women and girls are raped every day in conflict zones, such as South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur, Sudan [9]. Those who are infected with HIV face challenges in gaining access to counselling, treatment, and anti-retroviral (ARV) medications.

Increasingly, the United Nations, in collaboration with other organizations and governments around the world, are taking steps to address, respond to, and prevent sexual and other forms of violence during conflict and peace time. Since 2000, the United Nations Security Council has enacted three resolutions that address issues related to women, peace, security, sexual violence and conflict (Resolutions 1325, 1820, and 1888) [10]. It is hoped that these measures, in conjunction with other actions such as the inter-agency initiative UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict (UN Action), will help to fill a long standing gap in the ways in which the UN and member states have responded to conflicts and increase the involvement of women in the peace process. However, much more remains to be done to address the gender inequalities and attitudes which continue to place women and girls at risk of violence, HIV and AIDS both during times of peace and war.
 
For more more information on sexual violence in conflict, visit the following sites:

The United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict - Stop Rape Now 
The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict 

Sources

[1] UNAIDS. Global Facts and Figures 09. [PDF]

[2], [3] UNAIDS. Global Report 2008. [PDF]

[4] UNFPA. Promoting Gender Equality: The Education Factor

[5], [7], [9], [10] United Nations. Words to Action, Newsletter on violence against women, Issue No. 5, October 2009.

[6] United Nations. Stop Rape Now: UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict. Video

[8] Amnesty International. Rwanda: "Marked for Death", Rape survivors living with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.