Women in the Asian region faced several challenges during the past couple of years. Economically, they were one of the hardest hit during the 2007 global economic financial crisis because of the massive retrenchment in industries that hire mostly women. Disaster after disaster attacked the region caused by climate change that made women and children more vulnerable. On top of all these, political repression and gender discrimination victimized hundreds of militant and activist women in the region.

Yet, women persist. They are natural survivors. Existing in a region where people are mostly poor and oppressed, women live through the challenges. Living in a society where gender discrimination continues, women endure the hard times. They resist.

Women migrants comprise almost half, or 49%, of the total number of migrants in the world. They work mainly in labor-intensive industries or in the service sector as domestic workers, caregivers, nurses, waitresses or entertainers. Hundreds of thousands of women also become migrants by way of marriage such as in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, USA, Canada and in a number of countries in Europe.

The massive migration of women resulted first and foremost to the worsening exploitation of women in their home countries. Women, especially of worker and peasant origin, are continuously displaced from their jobs and their lands and are forced to seek employment abroad regardless of what type of job is available, how indebted they can become in the process of migration and however vulnerable they are made to abuses.

I was pleasantly surprised and inspired by this passionate letter that arrived in my mailbox about the issue of Climate Refugees and what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR ) needs to do to help migrants affected by Climate Change.

It’s by Atulya Venkataraman, a fifth grade student of United World College of South East Asia, Singapore. It reads thus:

Progress on the HIV/AIDS response is hampered because gender inequality and violations on women’s rights still exist. Furthermore, resources to protect and respect women’s rights are insufficient because policies on women and gender equality are often not translated into practice.

Global Situation of HIV and Women

At the end of 2008, an estimated 33 million people were living with HIV worldwide. Although the global epidemic stabilized since 2001, new infections in other countries have offset the dwindling number of cases in several countries, with most number of cases in Sub-Saharan Africa (22 million) followed by South and South East Asia (4.2 million) and Latin America (1.7 million). Globally, women account for half of those infected by HIV. In Africa, the number of women with HIV has increased to 12 million (almost 75% of these  women are from Sub-Saharan Africa) compared to 8.3 million African men living with HIV. The main mode of transmission in this region is through heterosexual sex. In the Caribbean, young women are 2.5 times more likely to get infected by HIV. Commercial sex is also the major factor of the spread of HIV in Latin America, with 30% of women being infected. In Asia, among the 47 million PLHIV (People Living with HIV), 35% are women who generally acquired the virus from their long-time partners who engage in sexual activities with multiple partners, or from partners who inject drugs, as in the case in Indonesia.

The Greek authorities should immediately review their policy of locking up irregular migrants and asylum-seekers, including many unaccompanied children, Amnesty International said in a new report on Tuesday.

Greece: Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers routinely detained in substandard conditions, documents their treatment, many of whom are held in poor conditions in borderguard stations and immigration detention centers with no or limited access to legal, social and medical aid.

For the United Nations (UN), 2010 marks a critical year for the Millennium Development Goals. From September 20-22, the UN will be hosting an MDG summit (High-level Plenary Meeting) whose aim is to identify ways to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. To gather input for that meeting, the UN held “Informal Interactive Hearings of the General Assembly with Non-governmental organizations, Civil society organizations and the Private sector” this past June 14 and 15.

At the hearing, representatives of civil society and private sector organizations shared their analysis of the challenges in meeting the MDGs and their recommendations to overcome those challenges. With rising levels of poverty and growing unemployment worldwide, we appear to be further from achieving the MDGs than we were in the year 2000. But the attendees were reminded that for the millions going hungry, failure of governments to meet the MDGs would be unacceptable.

In recognition of the negative impacts of neoliberal globalization and war to women and the celebration of the centenary of the International Working Women’s Day, the Asia Pacific Research Network, GABRIELA, Asian Rural Women’s Coalition, and Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development co-organized a conference on the impact and women’s responses to the economic and climate crisis and war entitled “Women Resisting Crisis and War” in partnership with Innabuyog, Plan International, Global Fund for Women, The Primates World Relief and Development Fund, and Karibu Foundation.

The conference held from July 19 to 21 brought representatives of workers, peasants and fisher-folk organizations, pastoralists, Dalits, indigenous people, youth, migrants, women, and other sectors and stakeholders together to a common space for sharing and learning experiences, strategies and perspectives on survival and resistance amidst the multiple crises and wars.

In a bid to accelerate the empowerment of women, the General Assembly held on July 2, 2010 voted unanimously to create a dynamic new entity merging four United Nations offices focusing on gender equality, a move hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior officials.

“The newest member of the UN family has been born today,” Mr. Ban told the Assembly after it passed the resolution setting up the new UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to be known as UN Women.

International Conference of Migrants Service Providers
on Undocumented Migrants and the Current Global Economic Crisis
Academy House, San 76, Insu 6-dong, Gangbuk-gu, Seoul City
July 16 and 17, 2010

D E C L A R A T I O N O F U N I T Y

We, grassroots migrant organizations and unions, migrants’ rights advocates and service providers gather together in Seoul, South Korea this July 16-17, 2010 for the International Conference of Migrants Service Providers on Undocumented Migrants and the Current Global Economic Crisis.

Women resisting Crisis and War

Conference Declaration

We, 110 women and men from 16 countries and regions from Australia, Bangladesh, China and Hongkong SAR, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam, and The Netherlands, and representing peasant, agricultural workers, church groups, Dalit women, fisherfolk, indigenous women, migrants, minorities, workers, urban poor, girls, youth, academe and support NGOs and networks met for the Women Resisting Crisis and War: A conference on the impacts and women’s responses to the economic and climate crisis and war from July 19-21, 2010 in Baguio City, Philippines.

In this conference, we have reached unity in the analysis that imperialist globalization spawned the multi-faceted, yet interconnected crises encompassing the economic, political and ecological spheres and is causing unparalleled suffering all over the world. Worst afflicted of these crises are people from poor countries, most especially women and children.

Joan was once asked to summarize her life and her contributions, and she said: “I have taken part in two of the greatest things of the 20th century – the development of the atom bomb and the Chinese revolution. Who could ask for more?”

As we remember the American nuclear physicist, Joan Chase Hinton --an internationalist, a people’s scientist and a true socialist, we hope that the lessons in her life and struggles will inspire the youth of today in search of a better world.

Impact of the economic crisis on women

• Women constitute around 60–80 percent of the export manufacturing workforce in the developing world, a sector the World Bank expects to shrink significantly during the economic crisis 1.

• The global economic crisis is expected to plunge a further 22 million women into unemployment, which would lead to a female unemployment rate of 7.4 percent (versus 7 percent of male unemployment) 2.