L’attivista femminista Asha Elkarib risponde alle domande della nostra radio sulla situazione nel suo paese e indicando come la comunità internazionale può aiutare il suo paese e le donne.  Qui di seguito l’intervista anche in video e l’appello in inglese lanciato dalle femministe riunite al convegno del Cairo.

IN SOLIDARITY WITH SUDANESE WOMEN

STOP PHYSICAL ABUSE AND HUMILIATION OF WOMEN

ADDRESSED TO:

THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL MR. BAN KI-MOON

THE UNDER SECRETARY GENERAL UN WOMEN MS. MICHELLE BACHELET

THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MS RASHIDA MANJOO

SUDAN PRESIDENT OMAR HASSAN AL-BASHIR

THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN

We, the 120 women and men from 24 countries from across the world, gathered in Cairo Egypt on 16th – 18th December 2010 at the Global Conference “Women and the 21 Century-Feminist Alternatives” declare our deep concern with the practicing of lashing of women by the police in Sudan.

We denounce the lashing of the young Sudanese woman at al Hijera police station in Omdurman. The woman was lashed according to the humiliating laws constituted in the Sudanese Public Order System and the Sudanese Criminal Laws that allow 40 flogs if a woman is not wearing “decent” clothes. Lashing of Sudanese women has been turned into an everyday practice at police stations in the presence of judges to supervise. It is not tolerable.

We were also shocked to learn that women and men activists had been arrested on 14 December while gathering in the centre of Khartoum to walk peacefully to the Ministry of Justice to hand in a petition of protest against lashing of women and calling for the abolishment of the Public Order Laws & Regulations.

We express our utmost condemnation to all discriminatory laws and humiliating practices against women. We express our solidarity with the women and men activists who peacefully demonstrated against the lashing of women.

We request the government of Sudan to immediately stop the anachronism of lashing and any physical punishment of women and to repeal the Public Order Laws. It is unacceptable in the 21 century to continue to deprive women from their basic human rights and human dignity.  It is unacceptable in the 21 century to continue treating women as slaves or third class citizens. Human progress and social development can only be measured in the light of gender equality, equal rights and equal worth for both women and men.

We address the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the UN Under Secretary General Michelle Bachelet to use their mandate in protecting women whose basic human rights are being brutally violated.

Cairo, December the 18th 2010