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When President Obama took office he published a letter to his daughters, “What I Want for You and Every Child in America.” He spoke about righting wrongs and making America better; wanting his children and others to grow up in a world with no limits on their dreams, with schools worthy of their potential.
Speculation in Washington is Susan Rice, America's Ambassador to the United Nations, may resign in the coming weeks. Embattled by a candidacy for Secretary of State that went awry, Rice has suffered a confidence and credibility lost that will hinder her ability to be an effective representative for America at the UN.
People often recall when they learned Santa Claus wasn’t real. In Iowa, this innocence-lost moment apparently happens when children learn Betty Crocker isn’t real — or so I was told at the 10th annual Preventing Child Abuse Conference last week in Des Moines.
Peter Dalglish, a Canadian and former senior United Nations (UN) official, has been charged with child rape in the Republic of Nepal. The maximum punishment has been requested as Dalglish remains in jail, since his April 8th arrest, awaiting a final hearing.
I never understood the term "limousine liberal." I grew up down a dirt road in rural Maine. During mud-season we parked our car where the pavement ended and walked the mile to our house. Limousines had no role in my childhood. Liberalism, yes, to an extreme, but limos, I had no clue about limos.
The scandal involving Secret Service personnel and US military elites who engaged prostitutes while assigned to protect our president and our national security is so much more than a misguided "boys-will-be-boys" incident. It is a national security breach that exposes President Obama's leadership deficit.
Elections in America are now big business rather than public service. They resemble generous feeding troughs for political gatekeepers to slop up easy money by shaping candidates, predicting elections, and informing Washington power brokers what the "average" voter wants.
Maybe Canada didn’t get the memo, but blaming Russia for failed leadership on Syria isn’t sticking. The only ‘sick joke’ is Canada’s failure to enforce the international moral norm of the responsibility to protect in Syria.
August has been a monumental month in the fight to end impunity for child predators.
Penny Mordaunt, Britain’s Secretary of State for International Development, announced a $13 million dollar (USD) humanitarian sex offenders registry at the International Safeguarding Summit in London this week. Slap-dash, with, apparently, little thought to how predators operate, this latest effort to safeguard the international aid sector was denounced as “rudimentary” and “haphazard” by Code Blue of Aids-Free World.
Sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector has become widespread and systemic with little recognition of the problem. It's time to lift the lid.
Joel Davis was arrested in New York last week as he made plans to rape children of a “father” trafficking his eight-year-old daughter and his girlfriend’s toddler. The “father” was an undercover investigator.
The Harvey Weinstein scandal and subsequent #MeToo revolution is rattling institutions and outing predatory men in various professions. In the humanitarian aid sector Oxfam is in the #AidToo spotlight.
International aid agencies are facing scrutiny like never before. As distrust and lurid sexual abuse scandals emerge, can anything be done to salvage the sector?
Larry Nassar, a now former medical professor at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, has finally been held to account for the prolific crimes he committed against many children over decades. What is less discussed is his December 2016 arrest on federal child pornography charges.
Dylan Farrow has moved the American conversation on silence and impunity for sexual abuse. In an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, she describes how her stepfather, film director Woody Allen, groomed and raped her when she was seven years old.
This time it was to be a woman’s turn. But no. Not yet. Still not yet. The United Nations (UN) rung in the New Year with another white man, António Guterres from Portugal, taking over the reigns as secretary-general.
When I joined the United Nations (UN) as a human rights specialist, decades ago, I was elated that I might contribute to the ideals of the UN Charter ; a global agreement designed to improve human dignity through peace and equality. Now, as I consider the UN’s new Secretary-General António Guterres, my thoughts are occupied by all the broken promises and people silenced trying to report abuse.
NEW YORK TIMES -- It's a perennial problem. War occurs. Women are raped. Reporters flood the war zone looking for raped women. War subsides. The international community and the journalists lose interest in women's issues. Women continue to be raped. No one cares.
MS. MAGAZINE -- Last Thursday The Guardian reported on a United Nations publication, released in September, that described four U.N. staff fired for trading in images and/or videos of child sex abuse on their work computers.
Rumors are flying in Washington. Were White House staff involved with prostitutes in Colombia? In advance of the long awaited Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Inspector General (IG)’s report on the Columbia prostitution scandal, many in DC are wondering if the Inspector General’s report might answer this question.
FORBES -- Senator Grassley’s has been a beacon in the storm during an Obama Administration that has targeted whistleblowers and prevented accountability as never before. The Pentagon is also under Senator Grassley’s fire for failing to examine 1,700 of the 5,200 reports of employees doing child porn.
Adopted by the UN’s General Assembly on December 9, 1948, Article 2 of the Genocide Convention states, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group such as...
Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wrote in “The Craft of Intelligence,” “sex and hard-headed intelligence operations rarely mix well.” Perhaps the boys at the Pentagon need a refresher course. This past week, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency warned its staff not to view porn on U.S. government computers. The Pentagon also released a report on April’s Secret Service Colombian scandal. The two are connected.
President Obama honed an image as a “foreign policy president.” He has been adored abroad. At home, he championed human rights and humanitarian responsibility. With a genocide under way in Syria, that the president has refused to prevent, his foreign policy is exposed as a dangerous hypocrisy; one damaging America’s domestic security and global leadership. Here’s why.
In 1995 an estimated 20,000 unarmed children, babies and adults were brutally tortured and shot by the Serbian military into mass graves in, and around, the UN promised “safe area” of Srebrenica and Zepa. One-hundred and seventeen unarmed UN Peacekeepers were also murdered by...
When Bill Clinton was president, Hillary Clinton said if a country was too small, poor or dangerous, that’s where the first lady went. Hmm: Maybe Michelle Obama could follow now-Secretary of State Clinton’s rule and visit the Syrian refugee camps this summer...
This year I’ve found myself encouraging my students at American University to apply to the Secret Service, FBI and CIA. Now why would a liberal activist/academic who often finds herself at odds with U.S. Government policy do that? ...
Mr. Holder was up on the Hill last week testifying before Congress, again, about the Department of Justice’s gun-tracking Fast and Furious operation. There are allegations of lies and obstruction of justice committed by department employees and claims that the attorney general himself is covering for his staff rather than upholding the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Holder’s recent testimony caused Rep. Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Republican, to declare Mr. Holder is unfit to be America’s attorney general.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Beltway has an odd effect on people. Those who live too long inside are relatively clueless about life beyond. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the current Democratic leadership.
Books
Epidemic: America's Trade in Child Rape
by Lori Handrahan
The problem of child sex abuse and its cover-up is real. A generation of American children are being destroyed. If you think this happens to someone else’s children and your children are safe, you are mistaken. Your children might be enduring sexual abuse right now while you remain dangerously ignorant. America’s appetite for child pornography puts all our children at risk. Your children and mine. Whether you acknowledge it or not. This book is a wake-up call about a subject too few people want to discuss. That is, while no one was watching, America has become a child pornography nation.
Gendering Ethnicity: Implications for Democracy Assistance (Issues in Globalization)
by Lori Handrahan
Democracy, anticipated by American and other Western powers to prevent economic chaos and political conflict within and among states, is not evolving as expected. This research argues that part of the failure resides in United States democracy assistance's inadequate consideration of gender within democracy programming.
The UN, Human Rights and Post-Conflict Situations
Edited by Nigel White and Dirk Klaasen, Chapter 17 by Lori Handrahan
This book considers the human rights standards applicable to the United Nations and applied by the United Nations in post-conflict situations, including East Timor, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Chapter 17 by Lori Handrahan is titled: "Rhetoric and reality: Post-conflict recovery and development: the United Nations and gender reform."
United Nations Reports
Review of OCHA’s Gender Equality Policy
2 December 2010
Prepared by the Evaluation and Guidance Section, UN OCHA Based on information and recommendations provided by Lori Handrahan, Independent Consultant
The creation of OCHA’s Gender Equality Policy in 2005 and of a dedicated Senior Gender Specialist position in 2006 have been important steps towards gender mainstreaming in OCHA. Moreover, the role of interagency tools such as the IASC Gender E- Learning, Gender Markers, the GenCap programme and leadership in advocacy is proving invaluable to reach established gender objectives. GenCaps have been an important asset to support and provide technical guidance, and when placed with OCHA they have strengthened OCHA’s ability to provide effective coordination on gender.
Assessment of The Gender Based Violence Information Management (GBVIMS) Pilot in Northern Uganda
September 2010
Lori Handrahan, Ph.D. & Rose Mary Nalwadda, MA
Challenges of gathering accurate and reliable data on gender-based violence (GBV) during humanitarian responses are significant. Humanitarian decision-makers, GBV programmers/service providers, and donors all require valid and robust GBV data to provide, and accurately target, critically needed GBV services. Yet, sharable GBV data in humanitarian contexts has been largely absent because the means to collect such data has been non-existent. Insufficient funds, against an extreme need, are available for crucial GBV services, let alone finances to create safe and ethical data collection and management systems.
Academic Writing
Conflict, gender, ethnicity and post-conflict reconstruction
L Handrahan - Security Dialogue, 2004 - sdi.sagepub.com - Cited by 98
Abstract This article introduces the concept of ethnicity in relation to gendered security
problems in conflict and post-conflict settings. Feminist research has established that men
and women experience conflict and post-conflict situations differently owing to issues of ...
Hunting for women: bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan
L Handrahan - International feminist journal of politics, 2004 - Taylor & Francis - Cited by 35
In 1983 Benedict Anderson famously claimed that the ethnic fraternity enabled millions of
people to kill, and more so to die, over the past two centuries, in the name of their perceived
community. While plenty of subsequent research focused on both the ethnic and violent ...
Gender and ethnicity in the 'transitional democracy' of Kyrgyzstan
LM Handrahan - Central Asian Survey, 2001 - Taylor & Francis - Cited by 24
Despite Central Asia's political significance, isolation and complexity best characterize the
region. 1 The relative lack of analysis on a country highlighted for its democratic potential
provides a compelling justification for consideration of Kyrgyzstan as a case study ...
Gendering ethnicity: implications for democracy assistance [BOOK]
L Handrahan - 2002 - books.google.com - Cited by 12
Democracy, anticipated by American and other Western powers to prevent economic chaos
and political conflict within and among states, is not evolving as expected. This research
argues that part of the failure resides in United States democracy assistance's inadequate ...
Gendering ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan: forgotten elements in promoting peace and democracy
LM Handrahan - Gender & Development, 2001 - Taylor & Francis - Cited by 10
Women's potential positive role in preventing and arresting ethnic conflict, and their obvious
absence in conflict resolution initiatives, has been largely ignored and negated from
community level to the level of international donors. Traditionally, ethnicity has been ...
Cited In
When we talk about technology and software development, it is normal to think of robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual worlds. We rarely, or never, think about the social sciences. We do not associate the humanities with technology; they seem like opposing fields that never come together.
Child sex trafficking, child pornography, and sexual abuse of minors is a serious, growing issue all around the world. Even worse, it seems to be perpetuated by education officials at alarming rates. Unfortunately, and for unknown reasons, data and statistics regarding sex offenders in both public school and higher education remain scarce to come by.
A study analyzing recent arrests for possession or distribution of child sexual exploitation materials has put together a profile of those offenders most likely to be associated with higher education. According to the study, conducted by Lori Handrahan, child pornography offenders associated with higher education overwhelmingly tended to be white, male, and on the faculty.
Over half of the arrests and prosecutions for use of child pornography found that offenders were in leadership positions, and 30% had received institutional awards for professional excellence.
Read more at https://bit.ly/3vPR9G2.
Child sex trafficking isn’t the first thing most people think of when they consider sexual harassment and assault in higher education. But it’s more common than you may think. And perpetrators are almost all white, male academics, according to a study by Lori Handrahan, Ph.D. More than half held leadership positions on campus.
Higher Ed Dive reports on how a $400k settlement over misgendering a trans student may foreshadow more Title IX clashes. After a faculty member did so at Shawnee State University, officials took disciplinary action against him. Nicholas Meriweather sued the institution for infringing on his free speech and religious rights. A federal appeals court abided in Meriweather’s favor, and Shawnee State is paying a settlement of $400,000 in damages and attorney fees.
Journal of Human Trafficking, and corresponding database, is the most complete picture of sex offenses against children in higher education published anywhere, ever.
Biggest analysis of sexual offenders employed by US universities says sector has been complacent on safeguarding
This paper is the product of a review of recent literature on issues of gender in the context of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction. It was prepared as background material for an international workshop on gender equity and peacebuilding jointly convened by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
On January 12, 2001, the Carnegie Endowment hosted a symposium to discuss the Clinton administration's legacy in promoting democracy abroad. Harold Koh, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor since November 1998, was the featured speaker.
The five-country USAID/CAR Gender Assessment was conducted from October 10 to November 22, 2009. It was jointly funded by the Women in Development Indefinite Quantity Contract (WID IQC) Task Order for Short-Term Technical Assistance and Training (STTA&T), implemented by DevTech Systems, Inc., and the USAID/Central Asian Republics (CAR) regional mission based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with country offices in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
While there is hardly a corner of the world that has not been affected in one way or another by the events of September 11, the repercussions are especially evident in the region known as Soviet Central Asia.2
The thesis tracks the emergence of western forms of nationalism in republics of PostSoviet Central Asia, and assesses the likelihood of ethnic conflict in the region, and its probably consequences. It also considers the means by which the heterogenous populations in Central Asia may be more effectively accommodated within the individual republics.
Hunting for women : bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan
Nearly twenty years ago, when the First World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children was held in Stockholm, Sweden (August 1996),1 the problem of sexual exploitation of children (SEC) facing the international community was imputed to a discrete and well characterised group of offenders.
Despite ratifying multiple international human rights conventions, democratizing national legislation, and increasing women’s presence in the government, non-consensual bride kidnapping has become a rampant practice in Kyrgyzstan. This paper seeks to answer why bride kidnapping is on the rise in light of the government’s progressive efforts; it further seeks to understand the cultural significance of the practice in Kyrgyz society to suggest a novel understanding in the context of human trafficking.
Until recently, the role of women in nationalism and governance has received little scholarly attention, perhaps because men have historically exercised near exclusive control over nations and states. This is ironic because it is women who create the nation/state.
Each year, we set aside the month of March to celebrate and recognize women’s research on women. Since 2013, the Women’s Research on Women Symposium, sponsored by the College of Education and Human Development’s Education Leadership Research Center, Office of Organizational Development and Diversity Initiatives, Women’s Faculty Network, and Women’s and Gender Studies, is an annual event at Texas A&M University, where our community comes together and recognizes our very own female faculty conducting research on girls, women, and gender.
This post will be dedicated to clarify some concepts, such as national identity and gender, and shortly explain how and why they relate to each other. I will present a few theories of how national identity is constructed and maintained, to elaborate on my first out of three questions presented in my introductory post
Hunting for women : bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan
Democracy, anticipated by American and other Western powers to prevent economic chaos and political conflict within and among states, is not evolving as expected. This research argues that part of the failure resides in United States democracy assistance's inadequate consideration of gender within democracy programming.
Kyrgyzstan (also “Kyrgyz,” “Kirgizia,” or “Kirghizia”), officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked and mountainous country in Central Asia. It borders Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and the People's Republic of China to the southeast.
Education is a key element in shaping the worldview of the next generation and determines society's core values, ideology, and basic understanding of human rights. While Kyrgyzstan is a secular state, Islamic education, backed by Arab and Turkish sponsors, continues to increase in popularity with the construction of thousands of mosques and dozens of new Islamic educational institutions.
Using data from the 2011 and 2016 Life in Kyrgyzstan surveys, we examine Kyrgyz women’s labour supply elasticities at the extensive margin.
Kyrgyz Republic
Kyrgyz Respublikasy
CAPITAL : Bishkek
FLAG : Red field with a yellow sun in the center; in the center of the sun is a red ring crossed by two sets of three lines, a stylized representation of the vent in a Kyrgyz yurt.
Gendering ethnicity : implications for democracy assistance
This exploratory small-scale, qualitative study examines the current state of gender norms in the Kyrgyz Republic by focusing on two concrete sets of observable behaviors: bride kidnapping and women’s low civic participation.
Democracy, anticipated by American and other Western powers to prevent economic chaos and political conflict within and among states, is not evolving as expected. Since 1991, Western governments have been providing large amounts of democratic assistance to the former Soviet Union, yet, few if any, of the recipient countries have developed into genuine democracies.
Domestic violence and abduction for forced marriage (bride-kidnapping) are pervasive forms of violence against women in Kyrgyzstan. Although statistics are not available, great numbers of women and girls in Kyrgyzstan have experienced these serious violations of their most fundamental human rights. The problems of domestic violence and abduction have long been neglected by government officials, and urgently need to be addressed.
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