Billions of people are suffering from insecurity, injustice and indignity around the world.  The global economic crisis is driving millions more people into poverty and placing them at increased risk of human rights violations such as food insecurity or forced eviction.

The world urgently needs a different kind of response and a different kind of leadership if we are to reverse this dramatic escalation of human misery.

The solution can only be found through a coordinated and concerted response rooted in human rights and the rule of law. This requires strong leadership, and your voice.

((( Make Your Mark )))

Amplfiy your voice with Asia Pacific Youth Network

Join young people around the globe Tuesday October 17, 2009 to (((Demand Dignity))) – this is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Add the amplification marks “((( around a word / object )))” to something in your world, take a photo or video and upload (or send to) APYN. More Human Rights = Less Poverty Join the Asia Pacific Youth Network on October 17, 2009 to amplify young voices in the Asia Pacific region, who are demanding dignity! It’s easy – simply think about what Dignity means to you and amplify it through taking a photo of it surrounded by the amplification symbol “ ((( ))) ” .

Then load it up with APYN to amplify your call with your friends across the Asia Pacific.

The International Week of Youth Action (IWYA) will take place simultaneously in hundreds of locations around the globe from 12 to 17 October 2009. The main theme of the IWYA will be Demand Dignity: Human Rights = Less Poverty. The Asia Pacific Youth Network invites all young people in the Asia Pacific to join.

Get involved today! Pledge below to take action, include your name, email and location

Get creative to (((Make Your Mark)))

• Use nature: draw the symbol in sand, or cut it into grass, or use your bodies!
• Be symbolic: display the symbol in significant locations
• Paint or stencil the symbol with ‘clean graffiti’ (chalk, non permanent paint on cardboard mounts or fabric etc). Remember to get permission!
• Create sections of the symbol on big cardboard boxes of the symbol that you can put together into one large display.
• Display the amplification marks in your work, school or home window, create and use posters, stamps or stickers in colleges, community centers, cafés…
• Wear it! Get people to show their support for the campaign through clothes and other items, for example: T-shirts, bracelets, badges, with make up, stickers and more!
• Create it: bake cookies or cakes, and ice them with “((( )))”, take photos of objects that signify dignity to you encased in “((( )))”, do a poster run around (legal) areas with the “((( )))” symbol, draw or dance ‘dignity’ and ask a friend to video – so much more!
• Think about things you use or come into contact everyday, can you use vegetables to create the “((( )))” symbol on your plate? Can you and your friend’s arms become amplification symbols?

Already busy on October 17? Doesn’t matter! It could take only a minute of your day – if it’s your birthday, have a happy snap with the amplification symbol, if you have an activity planned, see if you can spare a moment to include some way to (((Make Your Mark))), going to be away on holiday, consider what Dignity means to the place you are visiting and (((Make Your Mark))) in a small, unobtrusive way! Decide now to be part of this on October 17!

Yes, I want to (((Make My Mark))) on October 17 So, want to (((make your mark))) on October 17?

1. Register your participation in October 17 here

2. Donate your twitter or facebook status for the day.  Collate responses and send them in from your comments and RT’s.

• On Facebook, visit our Fan page, become a fan and sign up to add your status on October 17 (different language translations are available : want to help translate? contact apyncampaigns@gmail.com with the name of your language).
• If you’re on Twitter, use our Twitter app to help amplify your voice, and join others from around the world.

3. Invite your friends to join you!

4. Between October 12 and 17, add the amplification marks “ (((around a word / object )))“ in your world then…photograph, video or somehow ‘record’ you making your mark to ((( Demand Dignity))) – Get creative!

5. and take a photo, video, audio recording to (((Make Your Mark))) then send it back to APYN [webforms to be live on October 17 from www.apyouth.net] or submit directly to www.demanddignity.org (when you add it insert “imyoung09” and then your text) (((Need amplification marks?))) they just look like this: “(((” “)))”! Email apyncampaigns@gmail.com if you need more!

WHAT IS THE (((DEMAND DIGNITY))) CAMPAIGN?

Asia Pacific Youth Network supports Amnesty International’s Demand Dignity campaign, which aims to end global poverty by working to strengthen recognition and protection of the rights of the poor. The campaign will demand the leadership, accountability and transparency that are essential to end the human rights violations that keep people poor. This is a campaign about all human rights. It is the combined abuse of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights that drives and deepens poverty. By demanding dignity we are demanding that all states adopt and implement the laws, policies and practices that will end deprivation, insecurity, exclusion, and voicelessness. Participation and involvement in the decisions that impact on our lives are essential to human rights. By including all rights holders in policy making governments are at once creating a framework for accountability, transparency, inclusion and empowerment. These are the prerequisites to ending poverty. The Demand Dignity campaign puts rights at the centre of poverty eradication, and make rights protection efforts work for all people. The stories and solutions that people living in poverty have to tell will be the centerpiece of this worldwide mobilization. Together we will amplify their voices and demand effective responses from political leaders.

Suffragists march from New York on their way to the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington D.C. in 1913. © AP/PA Photo

On 8 March 1857, women garment workers in New York City, USA, marched and picketed, demanding improved working conditions, a 10-hour day and equal rights to men. Their ranks were broken by the police.

Fifty-one years later, on 8 March 1908, 15,000 New York women garment workers marched again, this time demanding the vote and an end to sweatshops and child labour.

International Women’s Day is marked on this date by women’s groups around the world. It is commemorated at the UN and is designated in many countries as a national holiday.

The landscape for women’s rights has changed dramatically over the past century. In many countries, women are active participants in the political process and have made significant strides towards economic equality. Globally, there are legally binding agreements to protect and promote women’s rights.

While women make history, they do so in circumstances they have neither chosen nor created. Women face heightened levels of sexual violence in times of conflict, insecurity and in the context of poverty.

In Sierra Leone, it is estimated that one in every three women and girls were raped, or suffered some form of sexual violence, during the armed conflict that raged from 1991 to 2002.

Sexual violence is also closely related to the cycle of insecurity and poverty. In Haiti, many girls cannot afford to pay school fees and can be forced into sexual abuse or exploitation in exchange for gifts and money for their education. Others have been raped in streets no one could afford, or chose, to light properly.

Women living in Kibera, Kenya, one of the world’s largest slums, go about their daily lives lacking access to basic necessities such as water, education and security. People have few opportunities to break out of poverty, and women and girls suffer the most.

Girls’ education is often considered a luxury and those lucky enough to go to school are more likely to find themselves burdened with extra household responsibilities such as caring for sick relatives or looking after younger siblings. Lack of security in Kibera makes it harder for women to improve their situations. The alleyways through which women must pass to get buy food or travel to work are often unlit, and can be dangerous places.

Join us and do something for women, sign on a petition to protect women in Nepal now>

Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC), a national women’s organisation, has records of over 40 WHRDs reporting violations including threats on their life and assaults due to their work in 2008! Concerned about growing violence against WHRDS, WOREC organised a national consultation of WHRDs in Kathmandu in November 2008.

WOREC’S consultation with Human Rights Defenders on 29-30 November in Kathmandu included more than 200 Women Human Rights Defenders representing various districts and working in different institutions in Nepal. Many women activists present shared that they face harassment, intimidation, and violence because of social taboos against raising discriminatory social practices. Women at the grassroots are on the frontline of combating violence as they challenge feudal practices and face the most direct threats including beatings; lethal threats and even death. Women defenders highlighted that as they become more vocal, building on new political space to discuss discrimination, they fear a backlash without any protective mechanisms in place to support their work.

Rita Mahato is a 30-year old health counsellor with the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) in Nepal, an organisation defending the rights of women and Dalits please describe who they are. In June 2007, men from her community who objected to WOREC’s work attacked the office in Siraha and threatened Rita Mahato with rape and death. Police failed to investigate the incident. She continued to face death threats in 2008.

Two years on from the People’s Movement, the Comprehensive Peace Accord November 2006 and the uprising of marginalized groups in the Terai district throughout 2007, there has been little delivery on promises of improved human rights protection in Nepal.

The reach of the state in many rural areas remains weak and there is no accountability of police at the district level, particularly in the Terai district, for investigating human rights abuses.

The resulting security vacuum has allowed the proliferation of armed groups that are engaged in a number of human rights abuses such as abductions, unlawful killings etc.

In this context victims of violence against women are particularly vulnerable and crimes against women are going unquestioned and unpunished. Many women and girls are afraid to report rape and other forms of violence, not only because of hostility and stigma from their community, but also due to state inaction in ensuring the investigation, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators through the justice system.

• 1909: The first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on 28 February. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.
• 1910: The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women’s Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women’s rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish Parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
• 1911: As a result of the Copenhagen initiative, International Women’s Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded women’s rights to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
• 1913-1914: International Women’s Day also became a mechanism for protesting World War I. As part of the peace movement, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with other activists.
• 1917: Against the backdrop of the war, women in Russia again chose to protest and strike for “Bread and Peace” on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar). Four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.

Since those early years, International Women’s Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women’s movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women’s conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point to build support for women’s rights and participation in the political and economic arenas. Increasingly, International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

Learn more http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd

Young people from 10 countries including Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, the Philippines and South Korea sent photos, holding a sign calling for the abolition of the death penalty. A link to the petition has been sent by emails to the government of the six targeted countries calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

See photos of e-petition http://www.flickr.com/photos/apyn/sets/72157607657482282/
See photos from each country http://www.flickr.com/photos/apyn/sets/