Equality

Generic HIV Drugs to Start Production

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

After much bureaucratic silliness, a generic pharmaceutical company can now begin production of a drug that helps people suffering from HIV/AIDs. Rwanda had to notify of their intention of importing the drug then get approval for the drug to even be manufactured (that’s the simple version). The point is that soon in Rwanda people will be better treated.

Rwanda plans to import 260,000 packs of TriAvir from Canada. The drug is a fixed-dose combination of widely used anti-AIDS drugs lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine. The generic product is manufactured in Canada by Apotex Inc.

A Reader Comments About Women

- Adam Clare

A reader, Krissy, left a comment yesterday on a previous post Women Change the World. I think that the comment needs some special attention and have copied/pasted it here for your reading pleasure:

I have more good news about how women are working to change the world!

Women of Global Action against Human Trafficking

On Sunday, July 1st, approximately one hundred women gathered at Silverlake Community Church in Los Angeles for an evening conference hosted by Women of Global Action (see http://www.globalaction.nu/woga.php). The event was organized for women of faith to explore the subject of human trafficking and included a panel of experts who are working to stop sex trafficking at global and local levels.

The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report issued by the U.S. State Department estimates that as many as 27 million people, mostly women and children, are being trafficked at any given time for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and bonded labor. In addition, according to a report from 2004, as many as 800,000 people are being trafficked across our national border each year.

The event was hosted by Women of Global Action (WOGA) and produced by LA LOVES (www.laloves.org) with the goal of educating their constituency about this epidemic and providing tangible actions for participants to take in order to take a stand against trafficking and the commercial sex industry.

Women of Global Action has active networks throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Their networks in both Burma and Ethiopia are actively working to combat sex trafficking.

Organizations taking part in the evening were:

• Trade as One who sell products made by ex-trafficked women in order to provide an alternative income,
• NightLight who run a business in Bangkok that provides women from the commercial sex industry an alternative life of making jewelry,
• Tiny Stars who provide law enforcement with on-the-ground agents who collect evidence of US citizens engaging in child prostitution abroad,
• The Salvation Army’s Safe Refuge Project which partners with churches to raise awareness on these issues and which fights the commercial sex industry,
• After Hours who work among the pimps and prostitutes on the streets of LA,
• LA Loves who use the arts to educate and inspire action.

Practical steps of action taken as a result of what people learned that evening were:

• Buying products made by people released from trafficking – Over $1,500 was bought on the night,
• Donating to extend the work of NightLight in Bangkok where 75 women are employed and where a waiting list for employment exists – one person donated a month’s salary for a woman at NightLight,
• Signing up for more training on how to combat the commercial sex industry and reach those in it in LA,
• 11 new women joined the Women of Global Action: LA Chapter as a way to unite themselves with other women in their city who are concerned with justice issues impacting young women globally.

Nathan George, founder of Trade as One commented: “The subject of exploiting the poor and vulnerable for the purposes of rape for profit is one of the most emotive subjects today, made all the more important because of the sheer scale of the industry. More people are trafficked today than in all of the 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade. 80% of them are women and children, and the majority are for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Combating a trade as large and powerful as this requires much wider general awareness not just of the issues but more specifically of tangible actions that can be taken by ordinary people to stop it. What WOGA and LA Loves put on tonight was a beautiful snapshot of exactly the sort of awareness building and practical action that is needed all around the country. We were very privileged to be a part of it and hope that many more like it take place in the coming months.”

“The small role that Trade as One want to play is to create a route to market in America for the products made by those released from trafficking in order to allow businesses like NightLight in Bangkok to flourish. Our focus is on selling products that provide the poor with dignified jobs that keep them out of the clutches of the traffickers.”

From the It’s-About-Time-Department

- Adam Clare

Good things happen every day a zillion times a day, sometimes people get to experience those good things before others. Today I found out about two such things:

1. Women’s rights in Sierra Leone have improved thanks to new laws that protect women. Other countries already have such laws in place and it’s great to see yet another country support equality.

2. Taiwan is going to replace their streetlights with LEDs in a US $7 million initiative to cut power consumption of the lights by 85%. LED streetlights are nothing new, but I have no idea if this is the first time that there has been a LED replacement program that is this big.

Women Change the World

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

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I found two articles today that highlight how women can – and do – change the world. In Africa, there was a recent meeting of women who work in development to help spur gender equality throughout the continent and embed equality into development practices.

Uganda has passed legislation stipulating that a third of the seats in parliament and local authorities should be occupied by women. Now, 29.8 percent of legislative seats are in female hands, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

“These milestones have promoted women’s visibility and voice in decision-making processes at all levels, which is the key tenet of democratic governance,” President Yoweri Museveni remarked when opening the meeting

Meanwhile in Germany, women from the corporate world met and discussed how they can fight for better gender equality within their community.

“In one generation alone we have moved from a population of women who were far less educated and represented in the workforce than men to a 21st century reality that now has 40 to 50 percent of women working worldwide,” Natividad, who is of Philippines descent, said at the opening ceremony.

Rising women’s employment has been the main driving force of business growth over the past couple of decades, she said. Women may still not be paid on average as much as men, but that would not halt their progress, she said.

Play Fair 2008: Sweat Free Olympics

- Adam Clare

The only way that one could not know that sweatshops exist in China is if one was living under a rock, a very very big rock at that. Indeed, human rights issues were a red flag when the IOC was looking to Beijing to host the 2008 olympics, but t lo and behold – the olympics are to be held in the red flag nation.

As a reaction to the IOC’s choice of Beijing, Play Fair 2008 is trying to get the olympics to go sweat free! This is definitely a good cause, and a great way to remind people that sweatshops are still an issue.

Show your support for sweat-free gear!

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