New York State Governor Watch

This week two new laws important for young people are waiting for action by New York Governor David Paterson. The Governor has announced his intention to sign one that extends the state's domestic violence law to allow family court judges to issue civil orders against a wider range of abusers [Albany to Expand Domestic Violence Law to Include Dating Relationships ]. He has not committed on the second, the Safe Harbor law, which would treat girls, age 15 and under, not as criminals, but as vicitims when they are first arrested for prostitution.

Clyde Haberman's New York Times column [Helping Girls as Victims, Not Culprits] provides a vivid illustration of the girls who might be helped by the Safe Harbor law. Haberman introduces Miranda, a young woman from Brooklyn who left home at age 14 and was sexually exploited and forced into prostitution. With the help of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a Harlem-based organization and former Ms. Foundation grantee, Miranda, now 18, has graduated high school and is exploring college.

Haberman highlights the extent of Miranda's accomplishment and compares it to her advocacy work.

Also not typical are her journeys to Albany to urge that lawmakers rethink how the state deals with children — girls, in the main — who become sexual prey. Her efforts and those of others paid off a couple of weeks ago when the Legislature, by unanimous votes in both houses, passed the Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Act.

Like the domestic violence legislation the Governor will sign, the Safe Harbor law would help in removing these important issues from the criminal courts. Young girls arrested for prostitution for the first time would be "classified as 'persons in need of supervision,' or PINS, and offered social services and protection from their pimps in a dormitory-style shelter," Haberman reports.

Haberman notes that Governor Paterson has not made a commitment to sign the bill and that the Bloomberg administration opposes it. He quotes John Feinblatt, the mayor's criminal justice coordinator, saying "the PINS process has no teeth" and he prefers keeping these children in the court system.

GEMS Executive Director Rachel Lloyd, disagrees. "Born in England, Ms. Lloyd was 'in the life' herself as a teenager. In part, the problem is one of perception, she said. 'These are not kids with cancer — they're not the kids people feel the most empathy for.'" She notes they are not as tough as one might think. "Whatever your stereotype is, when you sit down and talk to them, you see that a kid is a kid."

Young people like Miranda, affected by the policies they help shape and promote, are prime examples of the power of women organizing to change their world. As the ones closest to the problems they can generate the best policy and practice solutions.

Photo - Governor David Paterson. Source: New York State.

Los Angeles Times On Black Community's Fight Against HIV/AIDS

An article in the Sunday Los Angeles Times [Cookie and Magic Johnson and Spike Lee Help Fight HIV Among Blacks] highlights the "growing outspokenness among African Americans about the community's disproportionately high HIV rates." The number of women in the United States living with HIV has tripled in the last two decades, and today, HIV infection is the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25-34 years.

Featured is Carrie Broadus, a leader of the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), the first national policy coalition led by and for women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and housed at the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Many women don't even think about HIV because they don't practice such well-publicized risky behaviors as injecting drugs or having sex with multiple partners, said Carrie Broadus, executive director of Women Alive, a South Los Angeles-based organization for HIV-positive women.

NWAC continues its efforts to change policy including reform of the Center for Disease Control's statistics gathering to accurately reflect how and why women are acquiring HIV/AIDS and thus help make prevention more effective, particularly for those who do not see themselves at risk.

See our previous posting on women's efforts to fight HIV/AIDS and the role of the National Women and AIDS Collective.

Huffington Post on Gloria Awards

Our celebration of the 20th Annual Gloria Awards was a time to note the remarkable achievements of women activists and visionary philanthropists whose strength, courage and leadership move us towards the realization of the long-cherished vision: a just and equitable world. For 35 years, in partnership with our grantees, we have acted on this vision by building women's collective power to ignite change.

Marcia G. Yerman attended the event and shared her experience in the Huffington Post. She notes:

...within that room was tremendous solidarity for feminist activism, social justice, leadership, and courage.

The crowd was wowed by the story of 21-year-old Yunuen Rodriguez (winner of the Marie C. Wilson Young Women's Leadership Award), and her involvement in taking on a Chicago Spanish-language radio station that had run an ad campaign depicting a rear view of a line of Latina women in short-shorts. The caption "25 pegaditas" (translation being hits/slaps) was positioned on their behinds. Working with Females United for Action (FUFA), an initiative of the Women & Girls Collective Action Network (a Ms. Foundation grantee), Rodriquez developed a public relations strategy that led to a sit-down with the station's general manager, as well as an owner's rep from the Miami-based Spanish Broadcasting System. The ads were pulled, and they gave FUFA airtime to discuss their agenda on how to combat violence against women.

Read Marcia Yerman's full report at Women Get Respect -- Part 2.

Photo: Gloria Steinem © Kevin Wick/Longview

Senate to Consider Extending Abstinence-Only Funding in Medicare Bill

Two of the Ms. Foundation's national Sexuality Education Advocacy Initiative grantees are calling on voters to oppose an 18-month extension of the Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program included in the Medicare package prepared by the Senate Finance Committee.

The grantees, Advocates for Youth and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS), joined the Ms. Foundation and many other organizations in signing a letter to Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The letter objects to continued funding of abstinence-only programs and their inclusion in a Medicare bill. It notes:

The Senate Medicare package extends these programs despite the mounting scientific and medical evidence indicating that abstinence-only-until-marriage funding is a poor public investment.

It is extremely noteworthy that at least 17 states have firmly rejected federal funding through Title V of the Social Security Act. Acting on principle and in the best interest of their youth, these governors have rebuffed a source of much needed revenue after concluding that these unduly restrictive and ideologically-driven programs were, at a minimum, ineffective and, at worst, harmful.

An eight-year, congressionally mandated evaluation published by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. in April 2007 shows that abstinence-only programs have no beneficial impact. Students who participated in a range of curricula funded through the federal Title V abstinence-only program were no more likely than non-recipients to delay sexual initiation, to have fewer partners, or to use condoms when they did become sexually active. [Report Executive Summary – PDF]

A November 2007 report by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy confirmed these findings, concluding that "[a]t present, there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners," and therefore there isn't "sufficient evidence to justify their widespread dissemination." [Report]

To find out more about how to promote comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education, visit Advocates for Youth and SEICUS. To send an email with your opposition to the extension of abstinence-only funding in the Medicare bill, you can join this effort organized by Advocates for Youth.

Strengthening Strategy in South Beach

Nothing makes true progressive change seem more possible than when activists take time out of their busy lives to come together to build on past successes, strengthen coalitions, and share strategies to bring about transformative shifts in policy and public debate that will have a concrete, positive impact on the lives of women and families nationwide. We're so honored to be able to help create this space at gatherings like our reproductive justice grantee convening in Miami, taking place today and yesterday in sunny, humid Miami.

Over the years the Ms. Foundation for Women and other social justice advocates nationwide have come to understand that the most strategic, successful approach to bringing about lasting social change involves making connections to build power: across issues, organizations and policymaking levels, and across race, class, and gender. For the second year in a row, MFW asked grantees from our Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund to invite representatives from other organizations to the convening with whom they'd like to build or strengthen their partnerships, specifically groups that would bring a new perspective, constituency, and/or resources to the table and help move a particular policy or advocacy initiative forward--ultimately, creating a stronger reproductive justice movement and broader base for change.

Over two days, this year and last, groups have had a chance to review what's worked and what hasn't, to strengthen their strategic plans and to identify new, innovative organizing tactics so that when they return home they'll be much better positioned to ensure success.

For example, MFW grantee Migrant Health Promotion's La Voz Latina partnered last year with the Lower Rio Grande Development Council's Rio Transit and Planned Parenthood to ensure regular transportation for migrant farmworking women living in rural South Texas colonias so that they could access reproductive health care services. They were so successful--there are now regular routes to 99% the colonias in Hidalgo County in which La Voz Latina works and 1500 women use the bus service each month--that they're coming together to move into a new county, Cameron, where they will replicate the organizing strategies they used in Hidalgo to identify and develop local leaders, promote awareness about reproductive health, and encourage women to access services--the majority provided by Planned Parenthood--via public transportation.

As expected and unexpected challenges occur, such as changes in funding for transportation or reproductive health care services, they'll have a solid coalition of all three groups--La Voz Latina, Rio Transit and Planned Parenthood--to advocate for the rights and needs of the thousands of women they represent. And not just that--women from the colonias will advocate for and defend their rights themselves, thanks to training from La Voz Latina and intercambios (exchanges) between women from Hidalgo and Cameron Counties.

[Lucy Felix of Migrant Health Promotion, in attendance at the convening, was one of our 2008 Women of Vision awardees. Watch this video to learn more about Lucy's visionary leadership and the groundbreaking work of La Voz Latina.]

This collaboration in South Texas across reproductive justice and advocacy, transportation access, and reproductive health care services is just one example of the creative movement building across issues, organizations and communities taking place here. Moreover, folks aren't just working within their coalitions but across them as well, sharing ideas around access to transportation that worked in Texas that may work in West Virginia, or strategies for defeating parental notification ballot initiatives in California that may be applied to similar challenges in Illinois.

Look for more in the coming months and year for updates about the coalitions meeting here in Miami and their strategies for expanding the base of the reproductive justice movement and bringing about concrete social change for women and families in their colonias and cities nationwide.

We're 35!

Last Wednesday, our 35th Anniversary Celebration and 20th Annual Gloria Awards energized us all! We're so thankful to everyone who made the event a success. Our awardees spoke movingly about their work and partnerships with the Ms. Foundation as they accepted their Women of Vision awards for outstanding social justice leadership in their communities and companies. Meanwhile, through song and speech, our presenters, performers, event chair Loreen Arbus and co-hosts Gloria Steinem and Sara K. Gould entertained and inspired us the whole evening long, leaving us with a resounding charge to forge new connections across organizations and movements and demand lasting progressive, feminist social change during this election cycle and beyond.

For coverage of the event, see Divine Caroline's website for a Q&A with our President and CEO Sara K. Gould and profiles of three of our awardees Lucy C. Félix, Brenda Dardar-Robichaux and Yunuen Rodriguez -- all grantees of the Ms. Foundation.

Also see the fantastic piece by Jennifer Pelly, "At the Gloria Awards, Feeling the Promise of My Generation," published by the Women's Media Center. Pelly, a college student in New York, was particularly bowled over by the powerful leadership and accomplishments of awardee Yunuen Rodriguez and reflects on how the entire evening reinforced her commitment to, along with others from her generation, drive progressive social change into the next three decades.

Again, thank you to everyone who supported this fun and important event! Here's to another 35 successful years and many more powerful, visionary women leaders to come.

Photo top left: Sara K. Gould, Ms. Foundation President & CEO © Kevin Wick/Longview
Photo above right: Dolores Huerta (Presenter), Lucy C. Felix (Awardee), Blythe Danner (Presenter) © Kevin Wick/Longview

HIV/AIDS: Placing Women—and Women's Solutions—Front and Center

*At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 61% in sub-Saharan Africa.

*The number of women in the United States living with HIV has tripled in the last two decades.

*Today, HIV infection is the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25-34 years.

These statistics [PDF] are just the tip of the iceberg—the face of HIV/AIDS has changed irrevocably throughout the world and it's beyond time that prevention, education, and health care policy caught up. Women are being disproportionately affected and, as such, they are on the cutting edge of creating solutions to end the epidemic—solutions that should be front and center, both abroad and here at home.

Finally, some legislators are starting to catch the drift. This week, 175 members of Parliament in the UK signed a motion highlighting the critical importance of focusing on women as the global health community confronts HIV and AIDS. The motion calls on the Department for International Development to place women at the center of its HIV/AIDS strategies in the Global South. It also highlights "how violence, discrimination and inequality place women in sub-Saharan Africa at an increased risk of HIV"—a case study in how socioeconomic factors are intricately linked with the spread of HIV/AIDS.

This latest act in the UK—inspired by the "Women Matter" Campaign of VSO—suggests that some policymakers (however belatedly) are waking up to the fact that women are increasingly disproportionately—and uniquely—impacted by HIV/AIDS worldwide. As a result, they’ve decided any successful strategy to confront the epidemic should consider women key.

Such an approach to ending the epidemic everywhere is critical to ending the epidemic anywhere—including the United States. Indeed, this is what the National Women and AIDS Collective—the first national policy coalition led by and for women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and housed at the Ms. Foundation for Women—has been saying for over a year.

NWAC is in the throes of a national policy campaign which calls upon the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to revise its HIV surveillance system to more accurately capture data about how and why women are getting HIV—in effect, to update a decades-old methodology predicated on outdated understandings of the epidemic and to save thousands of women’s lives. In their own words:

“An outdated HIV surveillance data-collection system yields policies, programs and funding levels that are tragically inadequate to address the true magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among American women. As such, the current design of the CDC’s HIV/AIDS surveillance system has profound implications for women at risk of, or living with, HIV/AIDS in the United States.”

“For years, it has been widely understood among health practitioners and advocates nationwide that women—particularly women of color and low-income women—are at high risk of HIV infection," says Vanessa Johnson, a member of NWAC and Deputy Director of NAPWA. "But as long as the data doesn’t reflect this reality, women will continue to be denied life-saving prevention and testing services now reserved for other high-risk populations such as men who have sex with men and injection drug users.”

Last October, NWAC held a Congressional briefing on this subject, sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton’s office, where they presented their position paper and policy recommendations to over sixty government officials and national advocacy groups.

As NWAC so powerfully demonstrates, women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS are the ones to whom policymakers should be turning for solutions. The Ms. Foundation, one of the first to put funding dollars in the hands of HIV-positive women, has long believed that women living with and affected by HIV working in prevention, intervention and care at community-based levels are best positioned to identify policy solutions that will meet women's needs and curb the epidemic—nationwide and worldwide.

That said, we’re pleased to see that the UK is calling on policymakers to place women front and center in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Let’s hope this means they'll commit to placing strategies belonging to HIV-positive and affected women front and center. And let’s not just hope, but demand, that legislators in the U.S. catch on—and up—very soon.

Desiree Flores
Program Officer for Health