Introduction of a new blog series: Women’s Rights Issues

This semester, Oxfam at Queen’s will be releasing a blog series focused upon an issue that our executive members have expressed passion about in order to raise awareness and increase knowledge about these issues. The series will focus upon various topics pertaining to Women’s Rights and the intersection with injustice, poverty and inequality. Specifically, the five-week series will highlight the following topics including:

1. Ending Violence against Women and Girls

2. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

3. Women’s Economic Justice

4. Women’s Transformative Leadership

5. Gender and Emergencies

Furthermore, to raise awareness, each week the blog will highlight a project Oxfam Canada is working on to combat the challenge women are facing. In releasing this series, Oxfam at Queen’s hopes to highlight the challenges faced by women globally and raise awareness for efforts attempting to alleviate said challenges.

Part 1: Violence against Women and Girls

The first pillar of eliminating poverty through women’s rights is to End Violence Against Women and Girls. Violence is a significant injustice experienced by women, as a significant portion of the global female population has faced violence in their lifetime. The impacts of violence against women range from the inability to attend school and work, a lack of control over one's body and an overall experience of helplessness. Furthermore, consequences of gender-based violence include death, poor health and a wide range of disabilities. This considered, in order to reach women’s empowerment and better the circumstances women across the globe face, it is necessary to combat gender-based violence.

Did You Know?

• 1/3 women worldwide have experienced sexual abuse or physical violence

• 41 000 girls become child brides daily

• Poor girls are 2.5x likely to marry in childhood than wealthy ones

One of the featured projects Oxfam is working on to reduce these statistics is Creating Spaces for support, justice, and change, in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines. Through this project, Oxfam is hoping to prevent violence by:

• Changing local norms and laws

• Responding to violence by providing women and girl survivors support

• Improving understanding of violence by strengthening collective efforts and learning across the region

Check out more information about Creating Spaces and their work on reducing the rates of violence against women and children and including forced and child marriages at https://www.oxfam.ca/project/creating-spaces/.

Stay tuned for our next biweekly post on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights!