WOMEN & GIRLS – PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH

Women and girls worldwide experience physical and mental health issues from anorexia to depression, trying to measure up to unrealistic ideals that reinforce perfectionism is the goal, and that being a whole and a fulfilled girl or woman is not enough.  Fashion, cosmetics, beauty, diet industries, and more work hard to make females believe that their bodies and appearances are unacceptable and in need of constant improvement and enhancements.

This Women & Girls- Physical & Mental Health panel met at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland to present the serious realities of this social imagery and manipulation of women and girls, and the significant impact on their health, physical and mental, their rights, and their equality.

In the Human Rights dimension, women’s rights and gender equality are impacted by the fixation on women’s and girls’ appearances, even the buying and selling of women online, prostitution, trafficking, racism, violence, power and patriarchy.   The goal of this Panel is to show how such marketing, media images, commercial manipulation of women’s self-images and self esteem, are damaging to the dignity, respect, equality, and rights of women and girls all over the world.
Further, the Panel wishes to serve as a catalyst to further advocacy and actions for healthy, realistic images and non-discrimatory advertising of women and girls, and to promote corporate and media social responsibility for women’s and girls’ full dignity and human rights.

The expert panel was sponsored by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) – Geneva, Women’s UN Report Network(WUNRN), Worldwide Organization for Women(WOW), Young Women’s Christian Association(World YWCA) and the  National Organization for Women (NOW).

Speakers included:

UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women – Ms. Rashida Manjoo

Australia Government Body Image Initiative National Organization for Women USA – NOW – Ms. Kathleen Sloan

World YWCA – Hendrica Okondo, Regional Director for Africa & Middle East

Psychotherapist & Counsellor, Ann Lindsay, International Association of Counselling, Chair NGO Forum for Health – Mental Health & Psychosocial Group

Bangladesh Acid Burning Victim – Beauty Attack, Survival – Ms. Fozilatun Nessa

Female Stereotypes Global Research Study – Early Results – University G. d’Annunzio, Pescara-Chieti, Italy

Women’s UN Report Network – WUNRN – Ms. Lois A. Herman – Global Overview

Moderator-Worldwide Organization for Women (WOW) – Ms. Afton Beutler – Co-convenor for NGO CSW Right to Health Working Group.

The Panel organizers wish to thank Global Fund for Women, Acid Survivors Trust International UK, and Islamic Help UK, for funding support.

UN Human Rights Council – Session 16 – Geneva

Acid Burning and Body Image Panel Summaries from the UN

The first panel, sponsored by The Women’s UN Report Network, The Worldwide Organization for Women, and the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, was organized in an attempt to raise the profile of acid violence issues, concentrated on these acts of violence, particularly in Bangladesh.  It was.  The expert panelists consisted of Ms. Monira Rahman, director of Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) of Bangladesh, Ms. Fozilatun Nessa, an acid attack survivor, Dr. John Morrison, founder of Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI), and Ms. Lois A. Herman of Women’s UN Report Network.

The panelists discussed the conditions under which these acid attacks occur, placing emphasis on the fact that it is a form of violence whose victims are most often women who have spurned a man’s advances.  However, as Morrison stated, it is indeed a “premeditated crime – men don’t just lose their temper.”  Attacks are also often aimed at children and are linked with other motivations such as property and money disputes.  It is a crime that occurs all over the world, but mostly in poor, developing countries, and it is not related to race, culture, or creed.

The traumatic effects of the attacks were addressed, mentioning both the physical and psychological aspects.  Obviously, acid attacks cause severe, permanent physical deformations that result in many other health problems, most often blindness.  This proves to blatantly stigmatize the woman, and as Morrison noted, “destroys [her] economic prospects and social position,” as there are no real cures.   Perhaps even more harmful, however, are the effects this has on the woman emotionally.  She goes through severe psychological distress and receives a devastating assault to her self-esteem.  Simply stated, as Rahman said, going through an experience such as this surely “dehumanizes a person.”  And such “scarring leaves them with remembrance of the incident,” stated Herman.

The admirable work done by ASTI and ASF were noted in relation to the rehabilitation services it provides to acid burning victims.  The former organization mainly aids activists and provides specialists to help perform operations, while the latter focuses on providing medical care, legal and advocacy action, working on prevention campaigns, and assisting in treatment efforts.  Most importantly, they attempt to help the survivors live a life with dignity.

Increasing awareness is vital component in working towards resolving this issue, but the factor of accountability also plays an important role.  First, more substantial statistics regarding this form of violence are needed.  Then, it is necessary to find out a target country’s laws and work towards changing the law.

Ms. Nessa ended the panel by conveying her own experience as a victim of an acid attack when she was sixteen years old.  She is now the treasurer of ASF, and says that we feel that she and the other survivors are an “example that we can stand on our own to feet and work to change the society.”  This personal story proved to serve as a powerful conclusion.

Overall, this event was a very informative session regarding this issue, and was successful in bringing greater attention to this horrific crime occurring to women and children all around the world.

The second panel, sponsored by The Women’s UN Report Network, The Worldwide Organization for Women, The Young Women’s Christian Association, The National Association for Women, and the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, mainly addressed the issue of the harmful messages conveyed about women through the media, and how this affects women and girls’ body image.  The distinguished panel was composed of Ms. Kathleen Sloan of the National Organization for Women, Hendrica Okondo, World YWCA’s Regional Director for Africa & Middle East, Ms. Ann Lindsay of the International Association of Counselling and chair NGO Forum for Health, and also Ms. Monira Rahman, Ms. Foziliatun Nessa, and Ms. Lois A. Herman from the previously mentioned event.

Particular attention was paid to the negative affect of advertising in the media, especially in regards to the sexual objectification of women.  The persuasion techniques utilized by media sources have proven to be very influential, seeing as advertising is one of the most powerful sources of education.  The viewing of these messages teaches both sexes to judge women not by their intelligence or capabilities, but instead by their physical aesthetics.  This has the ability to create in women a great loss of self-worth and other psychological distress because of their feeling of “forever failing to live up to standards of physical beauty and sexual attractiveness to men,” as stated by Sloan.  She went on to say that this causes women to “live much of life in third person…[becoming] more concerned with observable rather than non observable body attributes,” a concept referred to as self objectification.

An international perspective of this problem was also addressed, noting its permeation in all countries, not just in the western world.  Okondo spoke of a trip she had taken to a small community in Namibia that had but one small television in a store that showed an American station.  When talking to some young girls in this village, they told her of their desire to “look just like the ladies on the television.”  Okondo then spoke of the need of “an organized system of managing perceptions,” making sure that the messages that are being sent are conveying what they are meant to.  She emphasized the importance of giving women the “knowledge, skills, and capacity” to manage their own sexuality in order to aid in their empowerment.

Rahman and Nessa were then again given the opportunity to speak about acid burning attacks.  Rahman beautifully linked this crime with the subject of body image and mental health in stressing the fact that the perpetrators of these acid attacks target the face because they want to “attack [the woman’s] beauty.”  Hence, both issues involved with the two separate panels, although different in nature, are an assault on the appearance of a woman.

Herman concluded by posing the thoughtful question of “Where is the girl given encouragement to develop within as well as without?” which is ultimately the most the vital component of the issues at hand. Ann Lindsay then moderated the question and answer period.  On the whole, both of these events proved to be very successful in bringing attention to these important issues concerning women and girls in all walks of life, and especially in providing empowerment for women to live up to their full potential.

« Previous Page — Next Page »