18th December 2009 is the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW. But for the last three decades, progress on getting CEDAW ratified by the European Union is slow.

WIDE Network (or Women in Development Europe) created a CEDAW blog to push things along.

Click here to read and contribute to the brand new blog.

And click here for WIDE’s statement on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of CEDAW Convention.

Disabled by polio, a group of homeless Congolese buskers called Staff Benda Bilili are attracting Western film-makers, musicians and internet fans with their sweet and funky music.

The band who are weaving spells about our ears with their dulcet rolling rumba and keening vocals are the unrecognised geniuses of Article 15 of the Congolese constitution, which exhorts all true patriots to find a way to cope and survive by fair means or foul. In other words, they are the masters of survival.

They call themselves Staff Benda Bilili, which, in Lingala, the lingua franca of this vast and variegated country, means something like “the people who see beyond…” Beyond prejudice, corruption, the lies of priests and politicians, the grimy veneer of daily life.

Coco Ngambali, the group’s primary songwriter, explains; “We see ourselves as journalists. We’re the real journalists because we’re not afraid of anyone. We communicate messages to mothers, to those who sleep on the streets on cardboard boxes, to the shégués.”

To read more, the full article from the Independent can be found here.  

Currently, the band is in Norway to perform at the Oslo World Music Festival.

This week Reporters Uncensored features UNHCR/Community Development, Gender Equality and Children Section (CDGECS) recent profile of FilmAid International (and Media Focus on Africa’s) Participatory Video Projects in Nairobi and Kakuma Refugee Camp.  Click here to find the profile on the RUTV site.  And click here and here to find our original links on the topic.

Reporters Uncensored (RUTV) is a weekly Web TV series that covers the human stories behind crucial global issues not covered in the mainstream media.

Each week, RUTV streams video documentaries and clips from a global network of journalists who work with international news services, NGO’s and production companies. Our reporters use emerging digital tools to create media that matters on a range of international current affairs and development issues, such as: climate change, global health, human rights, government corruption, and trafficking.

Recently we profiled FilmAid International and their Participatory Video Program in Kakuma Refugee Camp in this blog post.   This week, the Huffington Post features their own piece on the group – and videos produced by young refugee students involved in the program.   Take a look at these featured videos produced by the students:

Today – a Child Soldier Relief special report on the laws that protect child soldiers and children in armed conflict.  The UN estimates there are 300,000 active child soldiers in the world.

On the run, often hungry and without shelter in a war-torn environment, an armed group, even a loosely structured one, offering food, security and housing, can be a refuge to a child.

Exacerbating the situation is the proliferation of small arms. Children no longer need serve only as porters and couriers. The lightweight nature and ease of operation of these weapons make them an ideal choice for arming a child.

Click here for the full report from Child Soldier Relief.

Click here for a report about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1882 on Children in Armed Conflict.

And here’s a trailer from Discover the Journey on child soldiers in Congo.

A friendship forged by war. A war that tore them apart. Two child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are faced with a choice to wield peace instead of the gun. Can they?

Howard Zehr, Restorative Justice Pioneer and Photographer

Colleague, friend and restorative justice pioneer Howard Zehr says reducing social distance and “othering” increases opportunity for empathy, accountability and dialogue. Great concepts to keep in mind as we think about participatory assessment.

Only by creating social distance from the other can we cause harm. Only when the one being punished is socially distant, the other, can we punish so severely. Only by “othering” the “enemy” can we make war.

Click here for Zehr’s full blogpost which deals with how we research, photograph as well as relate to each other one-on-one.

Click here for a video on othering when we talk about Africa.

Click here for a video about the danger of a single story.

This from today’s NYTimes:

In an unusually protracted and closely watched case, the Obama administration has recommended political asylum for a Guatemalan woman fleeing horrific abuse by her husband, the strongest signal yet that the administration is open to a variety of asylum claims from foreign women facing domestic abuse.

Click here for the full story.

I wish we could all be so clear and clever about dealing with those who oppress and generally act badly.  What a great approach.

…is an understanding that gender norms must constantly be examined and rethought.   This exchanged happened last month in the U.S. Senate over the health care debate.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has been pushing an amendment to “prohibit the government from defining which benefits should be included in a standard benefit package.” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) noted that basic maternity care ought to be required.

“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl replied. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Interrupting him, Stabenow added, “I think your mom probably did.”

This from change.org’s Una Vera:

Last month, French authorities razed an Afghan refugee camp known as “the jungle” in the town of Calais. Yes, you read that correctly: an Afghan refugee camp in France. Hundreds of mostly adolescent boys and young men living in the Calais woods were driven from their shanties during an early-morning police raid. Some were placed in detention, others scattered.

Now, Deutsche Welle reports: “The result is that downtown Calais has become a kind of nightmarish Neverland – with mostly under-age Afghan migrants, some as young as 12, taking refuge under its bridges and in its parks.”

Critics say the action has left one group of immigrants particularly at risk – children.