Select published articles; International peace and security / Development
For six years now, children in Syria have been living with the constant fear of being killed and, according to a report released today by Save The Children, the psychological toll has sparked a growing mental health crisis.
Under new leadership, the United Nations is finally taking measures to redress its long recognized failure to promote women’s leadership of the institution. Antonio Guterres, who assumed the role of Secretary-General on January 1st, campaigned as a champion of gender equality and upon taking the oath of office promised to make gender-parity within the 44,000-person Secretariat a priority. Meet some of the women he has appointed to top positions so far.
To the chagrin of many, the UN’s next leader will be not a woman. However, he—Antonio Guterres, former Portuguese prime minister and head of the UN refugee committee—did campaign on a promise of gender parity. And yesterday, moments after taking the oath of office and presenting his agenda to the General Assembly, he reiterated to the press that he will prioritize correcting the gender imbalance among UN staff during his first 100 days in office.
Female, Millennial, and a former child refugee from Afghanistan, Finnish Parliamentarian Nasima Razmyar represents the changing face of Europe. She sat down with me to share her views on gender equality, the Finnish welfare state, and refugees in Europe during the 60th Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations.
The mantra "sustainable energy for all" now reverberates through the halls of most institutions, whether public or private, concerned with reducing global poverty, protecting the environment and empowering women. It's a theme that puts African women at the center of global environmental objectives, especially with respect to their overwhelming lack of access to modern energy sources for cooking and heating.
Of the million refugees, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, who arrived in Europe since the beginning of 2015, over 85 percent entered Europe through Greece. According to the U.N. refugee agency, they continue to arrive at a rate of almost 5,000 per day, but they are slipping from the grasp of the world's fickle attention. Georgia Lale, a 26-year old artist from Greece launched #OrangeVest a performance art project designed to remind us their struggles are far from over.
Until recently, Thair Orfahli, a convivial Syrian just shy of his 27th birthday, had little to worry about save a tough exam or the travails of young love. Today, while waiting out the lengthy asylum process in Germany, he lives in a dormitory for refugees, but exists mainly a liminal space between the nightmare he has survived and the bright future he is determined, but not yet able, to forge.
But how successful will the new U.N. framework be in raising global living standards? Enthusiasts put faith in technological innovations. Skeptics say the global economic system is inherently exploitive and unjust and needs a real overhaul.
Maybe if the U.N. blueprint for peace and prosperity for 2030 were sexier, people around the world would take notice and support it. So goes the thinking behind #GlobalGoals, an infotainment campaign to frame the U.N.'s new agenda for economic and social development as something that everyone should be excited and optimistic about.
Noorjahan Akbar's stubborn optimism about the future of her native Afghanistan offers a compelling counte-rnarrative to the bleak picture painted by Western media. Despite the gargantuan security challenges, it is possible, she insists, to revive the prosperity, tolerance, commitment to learning and cultural vibrancy that characterized Afghan society throughout much of the country’s illustrious history.
Religious leaders and human rights advocates are convening across the street from the White House today, June 4, to call on President Barack Obama to take executive action to ensure access to abortion for women and girls raped in conflict.
Zainab Hawa Bangura, the United Nations special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, recently completed a 12-day trip to assess the use of rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage as a strategy of war and tactic of terror in the Middle East, particularly by the Islamic State, or Daesh as some prefer to call the terrorist group. Upon her return, she gave a press conference to the U.N. press corps and subsequently answered Women's eNews' questions via email because she was traveling again.
The first Arab woman to serve as president of the U.N. Security Council, Dina Kawar talks to Women's eNews about the U.N.'s role in protecting women in conflict, as well as female Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Here's what one Kenyan woman says about being forced to carry through a pregnancy that resulted from a rape during a conflict period. Obama could end such suffering by clarifying that U.S. law actually does allow abortion funding in such circumstances, a health activist says.
On a panel moderated by the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, six former and current female Security Council members spoke about the strengths and talents they bring to the practice of diplomacy and the gender-based discrimination they still sometimes face.
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, an amiable and quick-witted nonagenarian born in Qazvin, Iran, is best known for her scintillating mirror mosaics. Inspired and guided by geometric principles, they are infused with her own inherent elegance and joie de vivre. The sparkly three- dimensional works draw the viewer in and reflect the movements of visitors while also offering fragmented glimpses of individuals, including oneself. Monir’s technique and designs are steeped in the legacy of Persian craft, Islamic decorative art and geometry, yet she uses them to arrive, perhaps unexpectedly, at Modern abstraction.
As those from around the globe converge on U.N. headquarters and sideline events this week for the Commission on the Status of Women, two people who've worked with the U.N. offer insights on women's rights gains.
Policy making currents are washing around girls and women at the U.N. now as a major rights proclamation turns 20 and a set of global development goals prepares to re-launch. Here's taking some stock of it all, including a quick sampling of major milestones since 1995.
As the U.N.'s global development goals face sunset, the two that particularly concern girls and women have marked progress but leave plenty of work ahead. That's especially true when it comes to reducing maternal mortality in India and Nigeria.
The most recent, 59th, session of the Commission on the Status of Women drew representatives of more than 1,100 nongovernmental groups who participated in over 600 events across the city, according to U.N. officials, making it the largest ever feminist gathering at the U.N., nearly double the annual average participation.
On the day before escalating tensions with Hamas saw the Israeli Defense Forces to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, an exhibition opened at the New Museum in New York, which presents that region’s thorny history through documentary-driven works by 45 artists and artist collectives from 15 countries with various degrees of connection to the Arab world. It invites reflection on the process of recording, interpreting, editing and presenting historical narratives, both personal and collective.
Though held in the sauna, the imagined setting is a New York City subway car on a sultry day. The performance is artist Rashid Johnson’s revival of Amiri Baraka’s 1963 Obie-winning play, Dutchman.
Emilia and Ilya Kabakov’s Ship of Tolerance is a 66-foot wooden vessel with colorful sails stitched together from paintings on 30” x 30” silk squares by New York City public elementary school students. The paintings express notions of peace and tolerance and hope for a brighter future.
For 26-year-old Maryam Jum'a, the story she found in the files of Jordan's National Commission for Women was too compelling to ignore. She hopes it will help humanize an issue that many in the conservative society still treat as off-limits.
DOHA -- With the iconic limestone and stucco bust of Nefertiti created by Thutmose in 1345 B.C. as their starting point, Till Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil have put together an exhibition that examines artworks spanning thousands of years and various continents through three lenses: that of the artist, the museum, and the public.
DUBAI — This year, for the first time among the nearly 300 galleries fine-tuning their last-minute preparations for Art Basel, there are two galleries from the Gulf region: Green Art Gallery and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde. The inclusion of the galleries, both from Dubai, has signaled for many a sign of the maturation of the Middle Eastern art scene and its increasing global presence. “The fact that you have two galleries from the U.A.E. points to the growth of the region in terms of its artists, galleries, institutions and private collectors,” said Marc Spiegler, co-director of Art Basel, which opens Thursday and runs through June 17.
NEW YORK - Lorraine O’Grady is engaging audiences across the spectrum of Manhattan cultural institutions these days, sharing her insights as a conceptual artist and cultural critic. Today, O’Grady’s ideas about race and feminism no longer seem radical, yet they still contribute powerfully to the public discourse in a society that has yet to fully come to terms with its messy past.
A freedom of spirit, tempered by thoughtful reflection, is evident in the oeuvre of Lebanese artist couple Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. I meet them in Dubai before the vernissage of their gallery show Lebanese Rocket Society and the unveiling of their Art Dubai video installation A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination. Skepticism over the truthfulness of images continues to inform their work, in what they describe as an archaeology of their observations.
This year’s Global Art Forum, an annual discourse on contemporary art under the aegis of Art Dubai, explores the theme “the Medium of the Media”. The event takes place on the rough anniversary of uprisings that spread across the Middle East, making it inevitable that panelists focused on where art fits into a landscape marked by tweets from Tahrir Square and the real-time dissemination of images of Qaddafi's corpse.
SELECT PUBLISHED ARTICLES; The Arts, Society & Culture
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, an amiable and quick-witted nonagenarian born in Qazvin, Iran, is best known for her scintillating mirror mosaics. Inspired and guided by geometric principles, they are infused with her own inherent elegance and joie de vivre. The sparkly three- dimensional works draw the viewer in and reflect the movements of visitors while also offering fragmented glimpses of individuals, including oneself. Monir’s technique and designs are steeped in the legacy of Persian craft, Islamic decorative art and geometry, yet she uses them to arrive, perhaps unexpectedly, at Modern abstraction.
Three out the seven officially declared candidates for the next secretary-general are women. And while it is not the first time a woman has been in the running for the job, it is the first time that one, let alone three, has a viable chance of getting it. Here's a closer look at the three female candidates: