women's rights

November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, marks the anniversary of the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

In Colombia, violence against women continues to be not just an issue of domestic or sexual violence, but of women bearing the greatest burden of the armed conflict. To that end, a coalition of women’s organizations from all over Colombia gathered in Bogota today to call for a negotiated end to country’s the six-decade war.

Beautiful Afghan carpets, jewelry and other craft items were available for sale at the recent showing of the film, "Afghan Women, A History of Struggle", at the Fellowship of Reconciliation on Sept. 11th.  Those who missed it can now help support the schools for women and girls for which these craft sales raise money.   Present at the film screening and discussion were filmaker, Kathleen Foster, and also Fahima Vorgetts who has been active for a long time in the struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan and who brought dozens of beautiful carpets and tables of jewelry, blouses and other items for sale to raise money for her projects in Afghanistan.  Also present to speak with them after the film was Dr. Fawzia Afzal Khan, professor of English adt Montclari State University in New Jersey.  Her most recent book is The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies.  

We have an exciting event scheduled for the next in the film series
at FOR. We will have the filmmaker, Kathleen Foster, and two Afghan
women featured in the film (see biographic info below) who will discuss
the film and the situation in Afghanistan and also be offering Afghan
crafts for sale. Proceeds of the sale will go towards the building of
schools for women and girls in Afghanistan. We hope you can make it
there. September 11th, 7-10PM at FOR in Nyack. This promises to be a
very powerful event, falling on this memorable date. You can view the
trailer for the film at: http://www.kathleenfoster.com/.

Afghan Women: A History of Struggle

As of this weekend, it seems the protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran have died down a bit… for now. The opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who for the past week has essentially been under house arrest, has agreed to seek the government’s permission before holding any further demonstrations and is no longer able to use his official web site as its functionality has been compromised. While these developments may be disappointing to many, they should not be read as the failure of this mass movement or its end. Such impatient and rash determinations by some analysts in the U.S. and Europe reveal a lack of faith in the very systems and values they claim to support. Have we forgotten that the Civil Right movement in the United States took more than a decade before we even began to see real changes? -- changes that are still in-progress today.