World Population Awareness

Peru: Women: the Enemy at Home

Almost 70% of all the women killed in a year in Peru died at the hands of their husbands, partners, lovers or boyfriends. More than 300 women have been murdered in Ciudad Ju'rez, Mexico, in the last 11 years. In Guatemala, 500 women were killed in the 2000-2004 period. But the biggest danger is not out on the street. According to a study in Peru femicide in this country takes the shape of domestic violence.

The press tends to describe them as "crimes of passion," because the perpetrators usually claim to have committed them in a fit of jealousy. These cases become invisible when the newspapers lump them together as 'crimes of passion,' and official reports do not discriminate between them at all. There was no official government monitoring of killings of women. The figures for January to March of this year confirm that three-quarters of the killers were cohabiting partners, boyfriends, husbands, ex-partners or ex-boyfriends of the victims. And the crime was nearly always committed in a place the couple shared. Perpetrators usually argue that they killed their partners out of jealousy, or because of alleged infidelity, in an attempt to mitigate their responsibility. In 2005, 58% claimed infidelity or jealousy as their motive.

In a police report obtained by IPS, Juan Jos' Galiano, 36, confessed that on Apr. 2 he strangled his partner, Rosa Trujillo, 38, because he suspected her of carrying another man's child.

Mar'a Elena Salas, a lawyer and researcher for the non-governmental organisation Demus, said the nationwide average was 12 cases of femicide a month.

According to the monitoring of news items, 52% of murdered women are between 16 and 35. One out of three women is killed by being strangled, throttled or knifed. Only one out of two is killed with a firearm.

Many perpetrators of femicide tell the judge their violence was due to their sense of outraged honour, because of an infidelity that is very hard to prove.

In over half the cases, the woman was murdered after several previous instances of violence, and in some cases the victims had reported their partners to the police.

The State does not prevent violence against women, much less do anything to eradicate it. The perpetrators of these crimes have a record of violence against their partners. Peru has signed the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women, but Peruvian law has not been reformed to ensure that those responsible for the murders of Peruvian women are sentenced appropriately. rw

The Word on Women - Niger Starts to Tackle Soaring Population - with Help of Imams

Until recently the subject of family planning in Niger was taboo, but commissioner Kristalina Georgieva, the European Union's top humanitarian-aid official, was pleasantly surprised this time to see a project teaching women about contraception and the importance of spacing births.

The local Imam where she visited "was quoting the Koran saying there's a verse that says there has to be time between the birth of children so the children and mother can recover and be strong."

The support of the local religious leaders at the health centre she visited in Bambey, in western Niger, was crucial for bringing down the high rate of population growth, she said. The growth was putting a strain on a country that is among the poorest in the world, that struggles with a harsh climate and is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Since independence in 1960, Niger's population has risen from less than 2 million to 15 million plus.

Now there is "remarkable openness to address family planning". "At the level of the president, prime minister, ministers and cabinet there's an openness to discussing family planning. There's an openness that 3.3-percent population growth is not sustainable," she added.

"There are already activities on the ground (for) family planning in a very community-based and respectful manner … The topic is not taboo anymore."

Mothers need to space their children to avoid back-to-back pregnancies which contribute to malnutrition and keep mothers weak. "That's where there is potential to work hand in hand with community leaders and religious leaders. It has to be culturally acceptable to work."

The annual hungry season in Africa's Sahel countries is expected to begin in late February or early March - several months earlier than usual. Aid agencies say between five and nine million people are at risk.

Talking about population growth in relation to food shortages is a sensitive issue, partly because large families are considered important in many cultures, particularly where people rely on their children to help on the land and to support them in old age.

Many argue that the real causes of food shortages are political and economic. Georgieva says a food crisis is looming in the Sahel due to poor rains, bad harvests, food-price hikes and the return of migrants from Libya, among other factors.

But she also argues more generally that it is time for the world to pay more attention to managing population growth in fragile environments. When she visited Kenya last year she realised that in 1963 it had more or less the same population as her own country Bulgaria - well below 10 million. Today Bulgaria is at 7.5 million whereas Kenya's has soared to 40 million.

The populations of other affected countries had also grown five times and this meant that when there were droughts the impact was all the more severe.

For a very readable look at some of the arguments on why population growth is not the cause of famine, take a look at this article published by Al Jazeera: Famine in the Horn of Africa: Malthus beware. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/20118178844125460.html

Gaia:

was the name of a mythical Goddess of the Earth. Gaia as used herein is simply the name of a system, as spelled out by scientist James Lovelock. Gaia refers to the web of life on Earth, including the ecosphere that receives life-giving energy from the sun, and is the only home for the diversity of species that humans evolved within.