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Photo by Giacomo Pirozzi -UNICEF/HQ01-0197
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Photo by Jeremy Horner - UNICEF/HQ97-0246
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 Recent Projects of the Working Group on Girls
From 9 - 10 March 2009, the Dutch Government held a conference at the Hague on Violence Against Girls. WGG was represented at this important conference.
Please click here for information on the outcome of the conference, which was on the website of the WOMEN'S UN REPORT NETWORK, www.wunrn.com/.
For additional information about the conference, - http://www.girlchildconference.com/
Violence against girls is an important issue for WGG. Our next newsletter, coming soon, will have an article about our current project on violence against girls.
We presented a program
Child Brides: Stolen Lives - A Dialogue on Early Marriage: Establishing Girls' Vsibility. It was held on February 18, 2009 from 1:15-2:30pm. in the ECOSOC chamber, United nations. It featured an excerpt from the NOW show on PBS entitiled "Child Brides: Stolen Lives".
We created a WGG page on Facebook here.
We also created a Facebook page to Stand up for Aisha Dubulow, a 13 year old girl, who was stoned to death in Somali in front of 1,000 spectaters for having been raped. See that page here.
CSW 53 2009
As usually, the working Group on Girls has been very busy in preparation for CSW53.
The fifty third session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 53) will take place at United Nations headquarters in New York from 2 to 13 March 2009.
Our co-chair attended the Expert Group Meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland from the 6 to 9 October 2008 in preparation for the CSW meeting. See our paper presented at the meeting. GM/ESOR/2008/OP.1 - Discussion Paper.
Click here for our written statement for CSW 53 E/CN.6/2009/NGO/22.
Click here to see our talking points. Feel free to take this with you as you visit delegates
We have created a Wordpress site Wordpress site for WGG and CSW 53. We hope that information about CSW53 and WGG will be posted there during the session. This should include suggested word changes to the draft document.
The WGG Sponsored Parallel Events are listed in the chart below with some of the co-sponsoring organizations.
Date
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Time
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Location
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Title
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| March 1 |
8:00 am |
NYU Medical School |
Girls' Orientation at Consultation Day
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March 2
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2:30 pm
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UN Conf. B
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Girls Caucus
American Association of University Women
Mercy Global Concern
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March 2
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4:00 pm
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Church of the Holy Family
315 East 47th St.
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In Her Shoes: A Girls Only Workshop
Girl Scouts of the US
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March 3
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4:00 pm
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Church Center
Grumman Room 8th Floor
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Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned to Prevent Violence against Girls
League of Women Voters US
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March 4
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3:00 pm
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UN Conf. C
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Learning to be a Girl: Caregiving in the Context of HIV/AIDS
Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations
and co-sponsored by: Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations and Working Group on Girls of the NGO Committee on UNICEF, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and Bahá''í International Community.
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March 4
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4:00 pm
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Church Center
Grumman Room 8th Floor
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Girl/Boy Dialog
Partnership for Global Justice
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March 5
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10:00 am
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Church Center
10th Floor
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Who cares? Girls Perspective on equal sharing in the context of HIV/AIDS
WAGGGS
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March 5
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12:00 pm
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Church Center
11th Floor
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The Impact of HIV/AIDS Caregiving on girls and older women and vice versa
Humanist Committee of Human Rights
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March 5
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4:00 pm
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Church Center
10th Floor
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Empowering the Girl Child
Anglican Consultative Counsel
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| March 6 |
1:15 pm |
DHL Auditorium |
Heroic Girlz
Division for the Advancement of Women UNICEF
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March 10
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12:00 pm
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Church Center
10th Floor
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Impact of Health on Caregiving
NGO Committee on Health
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Links
For the UN website on the CSW 53 meeting click here.
For the NGO Committee on the Status of Women’s information on CSW 53 and events they are sponsoring click here.
For a listing of all NGO side events at the UN Church center click here.
We have information about the ongoing work of the CSW51 follow up in several languages here. See the information in several languages below.
The Working Group on Girls advocated for the appointment of a Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence against Children. The UN has decided to create this position, but no one has been appointed yet.
Violence is a daily reality for millions of children around the world. It affects girls and boys of all ages, all social groups, and all nationalities. In every part of their lives—their homes and families, schools, institutions, workplaces, and communities—children, especially girl children, are beaten, sexually assaulted, tortured, and even killed.
Look at the advocacy letter written by the Working Group on Girls. It contains more information about this. The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly should be considering this soon. Click here for the letter.
The Working Group on Girls has also created a brochure containing the voices of girls advocating for the appointment of a Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence against Children. Click here for the brochure.
Please also look at our Fact Sheet on Violence.
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Resolution on the Girl Child Follow up to CSW 51
The Task Force for the Resolution on the Girl Child co-sponsored a side event in November with the Mission of Zambia and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on “Educating for the World’s Progress: Keeping Girls in School”. The three speakers were Cheryl Gregory Faye of the UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), Judith Bruce of the Population Council, and Auxilia Ponga, who represented the Zambian Mission.
The Ending Violence Against the Girl Child Task Force also held a program in November. The speakers were Mary Roodkowsky, Senior Advisor for UN Affairs at UNICEF and Letitia Anderson, Consultant, Strategic Partnership and Communication at UNIFEM. The program was part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Campaign
The World Fit for Children + 5 Task Force held a side event in December, during the World Fit for Children + 5 meeting. It was entitled Toward a World Fit for Girls: Confronting A Modern Day Slavery. The speakers were Pamela Shifman, Project Officer, Child Protection Section, UNICEF; Megan Larkin, a young Aboriginal single mom and a leader and coordinator of Women/Girls Program at Rossbrook House for street children in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Kimberly Adams, Program Director, ECPAT – USA (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes; and Simone Monasebian, Chief of the New York Office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
For more information on some of these Activities please see our latest newsletter. Click the Newsletter Tab.
Down the Road
| The mission of the WGGs is to help build a local movement on behalf of and in conjunction with girls through the establishment of national, regional and international NGO coalitions and networks.
These coalitions will:
The growth of such a movement will enable today's girls to develop their full potential and take their rightful place as tomorrow's women . As leaders, parents and productive, contributing members of society.
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