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NEWSBYTES - DEC. 19, 2008
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The Advisory Council on the Status of Women is the provincial government agency that promotes equality, fairness and dignity for women, by bringing forward concerns and advising the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women Act. Through research, policy, education, and partnerships, the council works to ensure women have an equal voice in society, fair pay and pensions, freedom from violence, and good health and well-being.
Newsbytes is a free bi-weekly e-mail newsletter with links to stories and contacts.
You can also read the newsletter and about coming events at the Advisory Council's website: <http://www.women.gov.ns.ca>.
Also, visit our online catalogue at http://women.gov.ns.ca/library.asp or come visit our library!
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
/1/ Peace and Joy
/2/ Canada Last in UNICEF Ranking on Early Childhood Services
/3/ Statement to UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
/4/ Campaign Schools for Women
/5/ Gap Between Women and Men Steadily Worse
/6/ Poverty Is Making Us Sick: Survey of Income, Health
/7/ Paper on Poverty Policy
/8/ Manulife Invests $500,000 in Nova Scotia Mental Health Projects
/9/ Human Resources for Health: a Gender Analysis
/10/ Grandmother, Grand-Père, Anaanatsiaq....
/11/ Video Competition for the Canadian Social Forum
/12/ Canada Council Names Winners of $15,000-Mid-Career Awards
/13/ Did You Know?
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/1/ PEACE AND JOY
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The Advisory Council on the Status of Women wishes you peace and joy and happy times with your friends and loved ones. We look forward to working with you and hearing from you during the New Year, as we work together to advance equality, fairness and dignity for women in Nova Scotia.
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/2/ CANADA LAST IN UNICEF RANKING ON EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES
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A recent report card published by UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre compares 10 evidence-based benchmarks to evaluate early childhood services in 25 wealthy countries. The resulting league table shows which countries are meeting suggested standards and which are not.
Sweden tops the table, meeting all 10 benchmarks – followed by Iceland which meets 9, and Denmark, Finland, France, and Norway which meet 8. Only Australia, Canada, and Ireland meet fewer than 3. Canada and Ireland are tied at the bottom with only one benchmark each.
Report Card:
http://www.seawindmail.com/sendstudionx/link.php?M=2062&N=237&L=715&F=T
UNICEF press release:
http://www.seawindmail.com/sendstudionx/link.php?M=2062&N=237&L=716&F=T
Source: UNICEF, Dec. 11, 2008.
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/3/ STATEMENT TO UN COMMITTEE ON THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW)
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Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald, members of the NS Chapter of Canadian Voice of Women, attended CEDAW in Geneva, on Oct. 20, 2008. They submitted a statement representing approximately 500 Canadian women’s organizations on the ongoing discrimination, violence and deprivations suffered by Canadian women. Women at the meeting detailed homelessness, hunger, and poverty, and Aboriginal women spoke of racism, loss of culture and the need to investigate the disappearance or murder of more than 500 of their sisters.
Women activists spoke of the crisis in child care, treatment of women and girls in prisons, and exposed the “invisible” crime of torture of women by non-state actors (spouses, family members, human traffickers, etc.).
Take Action on non-state action torture:
Read: http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/tortureofcanadianwomen.pdf
Sign a petition: http://www.nsvow.org/Torture_Free_Circle.html
Contacts: Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald (flight@ns.sympatico.ca).
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/4/ CAMPAIGN SCHOOLS FOR WOMEN
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Campaign school” were held across the province this year to encourage women to run for municipal council. Although the ratio of women to men remained the same after the October elections, the campaign schools helped prepare those women who ran and won. Barbara MacDonald joined in the workshops to discover how they might change the face of municipal government. In the December issue of The Nova Scotia Policy Review, MacDonald reports on her experiences and concludes: “To make the decision to run for office, women need to make ‘a leap of faith’ and have ‘a fire in your belly for it’.”
This issue also reports on the Aboriginal women in Canadian jails, lack of regulation, standards and choice in residential care for people with disabilities, and provides an evaluation of education outcomes for Aboriginal students.
The Nova Scotia Policy Review is an independent quarterly magazine for inquiring individuals and concerned policy makers.
Visit http://www.policyreview.ca for subscription details or email editor@policyreview.ca , Dec. 4, 2008.
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/5/ GAP BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN STEADILY WORSE
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The gap between Aboriginal women and men concerning imprisonment is growing. Although Aboriginal peoples represent only 3 per cent of the Canadian adult population, in 1996 Aboriginal women comprised 20 per cent of the federal female prisoner population. By 2001, that figure had risen to 29 per cent.
Aboriginal women were more coercively punished than any other group of offenders. The Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2003 noted that they represented 29 per cent of women incarcerated in federal prisons and 46 per cent of women classified as maximum security.
Using the sentencing decisions of two cases involving Aboriginal women convicted of manslaughter, the author explores the practice of law as a site of backlash and an appropriation of feminist-inspired anti-violence strategies. The author draws on feminist and critical race studies of restorative justice in the context of gendered violence to examine why the victimization–criminalization continuum has not been fully recognized in the practice of restorative justice.
Source: “Falling Between the Cracks of Retributive and Restorative Justice: The Victimization and Punishment of Aboriginal Women", Gillian Balfour in Feminist Criminology 2008; 3; 101.
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/6/ POVERTY IS MAKING US SICK: SURVEY OF INCOME, HEALTH
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Poverty is making Canadians sick, robbing health and creating huge costs to the public health-care system, says a new report by the University of Toronto's Social Assistance in the New Economy program.
Boosting incomes of the poor, even by $1,000 a year, can lead to health improvements. The study, based on the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey, found that every $1,000-increase in income for the poor resulted in nearly 10,000 fewer chronic health care problems.
"(...) the poorest one-fifth of Canadians, when compared to the richest twenty per cent, have:
• more than double the rate of diabetes and heart disease;
• a sixty per cent greater rate of two or more chronic health conditions;
• more than three times the rate of bronchitis;
• nearly double the rate of arthritis or rheumatism."
Learn more: http://www.socialplanningtoronto.org/healthequitylightman2008.pdf
Source: Partners in this report include: Social Assistance in the New Economy,
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/fsw/exponent/fsw/fswsupport/sane/index.html ,Wellesley Institute: http://wellesleyinstitute.com/ , Dec. 2008.
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/7/ PAPER ON POVERTY POLICY
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The Caledon Institute of Social Policy discusses major policy areas, the core of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy in a new paper:
• Affordable housing
• Early childhood development
• High school completion
• Improved minimum wages and enhanced supplementation of low earnings and income
• Restored and improved unemployment insurance system
• Adequate income and appropriate supports for persons with disabilities
• Support for the social economy
The report contains annual estimates of incomes of individuals and families on welfare in each Canadian jurisdiction. In addition to an extensively-annotated table of welfare benefit levels for single clients and families, the report includes information on prevailing welfare asset and income exemption levels in each province/territory, comparisons of welfare incomes over time and comparisons of current welfare incomes with various benchmarks.
Learn more: Poverty Policy, http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/720ENG.pdf
Ready for Leadership: Canadians’ perceptions of poverty, October 2008.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2008/Poverty_Poll.pdf .
Source: Caledon Institute of Social Policy & Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Oct. 2008.
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/8/ MANULIFE INVESTS $500,000 IN NOVA SCOTIA MENTAL HEALTH PROJECTS
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Nova Scotians living with a mental illness will benefit from a $500,000 donation announced by Manulife Financial to support early intervention programs and community-focused living residences. The Canadian Mental Health Association’s Nova Scotia Division will receive $250,000 for a prevention program for children and a peer support program for youth. The other $250,000 will go to the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia for residences for patients at the Nova Scotia Hospital who are making a transition back into the community.
“When you consider the cost of supporting someone with serious mental illness in the hospital is $170,000 a year,” said Robert Hunt, the Foundation’s chair, “compared to the $35,000 it costs to support that same person in the community, Manulife’s investment in the residences makes good financial sense.”
Mental illness is the leading cause of employee disability in the workplace, affecting both absenteeism and productivity. Industry studies estimate that mental illness costs the Canadian economy more than $51 billion a year in lost productivity, direct medical costs and reductions in health-related quality of life.
Source: Canadian Business, Halifax Dec. 9, 2008 .
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/9/ HUMAN RESOURCES FOR HEALTH: A GENDER ANALYSIS
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This background paper called “Human Resources for Health: a Gender Analysis” examines gender dynamics in medicine, nursing, community health workers and home careers. It discusses gender issues manifested within health occupations and across them. In particular, gender dynamics in medicine, nursing, community health workers and home care workers. The author also explores from a gender perspective issues concerning delegation, migration and violence, which cut across these categories of health workers.
Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network and the Health Systems Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health prepared the study.
Learn more: http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/human_resources_for_health_wgkn_2007.pdf
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/10/ GRANDMOTHER, GRAND-PÈRE, ANAANATSIAQ....
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According to the Vanier Institute of the Family, there were an estimated 6.3 million grandparents in Canada (2.7 million grandfathers and 3.6 million grandmothers) in 2006. This number is up from 5.7 million in 2001, just five years earlier.
While only a small percentage of people under 50 years of age (3 per cent) are grandparents, this increases to nearly half (47 per cent) of those aged 55 to 59. Among people aged 65 and over, about 8 out of every 10 has at least one grandchild. Grandparents themselves are a diverse group. About half (49 per cent) are under the age of 65, and most of these grandparents are still employed as they save for their approaching retirements. Most grandparents aged 65 and over are retired, but the majority, when they are able to do so, continue to provide valuable assistance to family and friends.
Over the past 15 years, there has been a notable trend in the number of children for whom a grandparent or grandparent couple is the primary provider (where no parent is present in the household). According to the Census of Canada, the number of children under 25 in this situation increased to 54,865 in 2006, up from 41,780 in 1991.
Source: Vanier Institute, http://www.vifamily.ca/families/FF11.pdf .
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/11/ VIDEO COMPETITION FOR THE CANADIAN SOCIAL FORUM
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The Canadian Council on Social Development is looking for students from broadcast, communications or social work to be part of a video competition for the Canadian Social Forum. Two winning entries that “tell the poverty story” will be broadcast at the forum and featured on the website. Winners will receive a $500-cash prize, travel and accommodation while at the Canadian Social Forum, and an internship with the forum’s video team.
Visit http://www.ccsd.ca/csf/2009/video for application forms and to learn more.
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/12/ CANADA COUNCIL NAMES WINNERS OF $15,000-MID-CAREER AWARDS
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The Advisory Council congratulates Halifax-area writer and filmmaker Shandi Mitchell for winning a Canada Council prize in media arts. The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Awards goes to mid-career artists in seven disciplines: dance, integrated arts, media arts, visual arts, music, theatre and writing/publishing.
Source: CBC News Dec. 16, 2008.
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/13/ DID YOU KNOW...
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That Dec. 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers? The event was created to call attention to hate crimes committed against sex workers all over the globe. Dr. Annie Sprinkle and the Sex Workers Outreach Project USA started the memorial and vigil for victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle, Washington.
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NEXT ISSUE – JAN. 9, 2008
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