Immigrant Women are fighting back

January 10, 2012 09:46 ET

Media Conference: Women of Toronto Say NO to Mayor Ford's War on Women and Children

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 10, 2012) - Toronto Women's City Alliance (TWCA), Good Jobs for All, the Steelworkers Women's Committee, Community Recreation for All, Immigrant Women's Health Centre, Women working with Immigrant Women, Newcomer Women's Services Toronto and the International Women's Day Committee representing the interests of women, immigrant women, workers, young people and children call for a halt to budget cuts.

When:	Wednesday, January 11th 2012, 11 a.m.
Where:	Colin Vaughan Media Lounge (rear of city hall ground floor)
	City Hall
	100 Queen St. West
	Toronto
Who:	Prabha Khosla, Toronto Women's City Alliance (chair)
	Venise Antoine, sole-support mother of two.
	Arabi, Rajeswaran, Rexdale Youth TTC Challenge Team
	Ayesha Adhmani, Immigrant Women's Health Centre
	Amy Katz, Community Recreation for All
	City Cleaner, CUPE
What:	Speakers will focus on how Mayor Ford's cuts to TTC bus and street car routes and fare increases; Priority Centers and recreation services; library hours; child care; community grants; and jobs at the city, will all reduce the quality of life of Toronto women and their families. They will be especially harmful to diverse low-income women and increase poverty in the city.

Contact Information

• 
  
  Toronto Women's City Alliance
  Prabha Khosla
  647-867-3363
  info@twca.ca

Immigrant women more hesitant to report abuse

Although this story was written in 2004, the facts remain the same. Immigrant women are not forthcoming in reporting violence. They consider how this will reflect on their family and many fear they will be rejected by their community. 
Being part of a community, being respected and included is something many immigrant women hold dearly. How do we unloosen their tongue and their courage?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2004/03/08/immigrant_violence040308.html

Ponder this

Never deprive someone of hope -- it may be all they have.

   Anonymous

Immigrant Women's Services in Jeopardy

Popular sexual-health program geared to immigrant women in jeopardy

JOE FRIESEN

Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 04, 2012 2:55AM EST

Cam Tran, right, a counsellor at the Immigrant Women's Health Centre in Toronto translates for client Guangqun Xia, left, during an exam with Dr. Sheila Wijayasinghe, physician and medical director at the clinic Jan. 3, 2011. (Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail)

Winnebago is a sexual health service that operates out of a mobile home. It provides services such as translation, medical and other support services for women who are poor, lack health coverage and having trouble accessing proper medical care. This service has been around for 20 plus years.  This service is supported by City of Toronto which recently proposed a $200,000 cut to Winnebago's budget.. The proposed cut amounts to roughly 25 per cent of the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre’s city funding which amounts to almost 25% of Winnebago's budget. This comes in the face of growing demands for the service. The organisation will be left with some tough choices if this goes through.
Politicians such as city councillor Mike Layton are rallying support in an effort to spare the Immigrant Women’s Health Centre from the axe.
The agency currently provides outreach, counselling and translation in Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Portuguese, Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Italian and Vietnamese. “We see a lot of women who have faced abuse, who come from countries where rape is not uncommon. To be able to provide culturally sensitive care in that situation, it’s a vital service for that reason.”
   I hope the City of Toronto realises that this is a small price to pay for what they could pay if these women are not treated. They could end up in the hospitals, psychiatric wards and in other institutions where it would be much more costly to maintain them.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/popular-sexual-health-program-geared-to-immigrant-women-in-jeopardy/article2290712/?service=mobile

Thought for today

Life istn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning how to dance in the rain.
Anonymous

P.S. I heard someone say that anything that is written by anonymous was probably written by a woman because in the old days women were not allowed to think or write so they wrote under the pseudo name
Anon.

Sisters in India is having a breakthrough the glass ceiling

...In March 2010, feminists and women’s organizations had celebrated the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the upper house, after a fierce 13-year debate among political parties. It seemed then that a battle of some significance had been won.
The bill would amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of seats in Parliament and in state assemblies for women. Despite sometimes chaotic proceedings in the upper house, the final vote was nearly unanimous, with 191 votes for and one against. When it passed, Brinda Karat, a member from the Communist Party of India and a longtime campaigner for women’s rights, spoke for many when she said: “The bill will change the culture of the country, because women today are still caught in a cultural prison. We have to fight stereotypes every day.” 

...

As 2012 begins, even the bill’s most ardent supporters acknowledge that India’s female members of Parliament have a battle on their hands. But some took heart from a statement made by the president of the Indian National Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

As the winter session of Parliament drew to a close with parties debating a proposal, which ultimately failed, to set up an anti-corruption ombudsman, Mrs. Gandhi mentioned the Women’s Reservation Bill and pledged to fight for its eventual passage in the lower house.

The first female president of the Indian National Congress party, the poet-politician Sarojini Naidu, would have approved. As a young leader of India’s independence movement, Ms. Naidu was among a score of women who campaigned for the right to vote. It took them from 1917, when the Indian National Congress party backed women’s sufferage, to 1926, when women could vote and run for some state legislatures, to see the first changes, and then several more years before all women in India had the right to cast ballots.

Read more

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/world/asia/04iht-letter04.html?src=recg&pagewanted=all

Honour Killing in Canada is Unacceptable - Womn's Rights are Human Rights

Four women are dead at the hands of their own family because they are women and because they wanted the right to choose, to have agency over their lives.  For this they were all killed. Four promising lives.  What are we to make of this?
Mohammad Shafia, 58, an Afghan businessman, his wife Tooba Yahya, 41, and their son Hamed, 20, are accused of killing four female family members. All of them have pleaded not guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder.
   In short it is the worst form of domestic violence and a stark example of patriarchy at its worst.
Why do people with these strong beliefs want to come to Canada. They must have know that this is a free country where people have rights including children.
Three of the Shafia sisters - Sahar, 17, Zainab, 19, and Geeti, 13, - along with Mohammed Shafia's first wife Rona Amir Mohammad, were found dead in a car found submerged in a canal, outside Kingston.
  You cannot want your cake and eat it. They cannot want freedom and deny it to others.
I am not sure how much new immigrants understand about Canadian culture when they plan to come here.
When family honour is threatened, it is acceptable and expected that a male family member could kill a relative. Perhaps this is acceptable in the Middle-east but not in Canada.
    Canadian culture of freedom, democracy and the rights of women and children ought to be made very clear and perhaps some psychological test be given to folks to determine whether they can integrate into Canadian society at any this most critical level.
Denying women the right to choose in Canada is unacceptable. Killing women because they have a mind and want to use it, is an abomination.
     I think the perpetrators of this criminal activity ought to be given the full extent of the law, hopefully to deter others from doing the same.  The right of women and children is foundational in Canadian society.

   http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/home/honour-killing_expert_to_testify_at_canal_deaths_trial/8ceba816