14 Thursday Jan 2010
Tags
2010, Antigone Foundation, calendar, Dreams for women, female athletes, Olympics, postcards, Vancouver
We’ve uploaded two new videos about the calendar. Feel free to distribute them to help spread the word or show your support for all 2010 Women Athletes!
27 Tuesday Oct 2009
Tags
2010, American athletes, Angela Ruggiero, Ashley Wagner, calendar, canada, Canadian Athletes, Cathy Priestner Allinger, cross country, Erin Hamlin, female athletes, figure skating, first nations, First Nations Snowboard Team, freestyle, girls, hockey, Julia Clukey, Katie Willis, Kirsten Manley-Casimir, luge, Michelle Roark, Olympics, para-nordic skiing, paralympics, Rachel Armstrong, Robbi Weldon, Sara Renner, ski jumping, snowboard, speed skating, US Athletes, Vancouver, volleyball, women
Ashley Wagner, U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Team
Robbi Weldon, Canadian Para-Nordic Skiing Team
Virginia Johnston, First Nations Snowboard Team
Katie Willis, Canadian Women’s Ski Jumpers Team
Sara Renner, Canada Women’s Cross Country Team
Angela Ruggiero, U.S. Women’s Hockey Team
As an organization based in Vancouver, we wanted to highlight the powerful women who will be competing in the Games and work with them to bring attention to the importance of women’s leadership and women’s equality! We believe that these women are fabulous role models for young women and we wanted to work with them to ensure that the Vancouver Olympics has a legacy of leadership for young Canadian women!
The amazing athletes who are featured are:
Rachel Armstrong, Canada Women’s Volleyball Julia Clukey, U.S. Women’s Luge Virginia, Johnton, First Nations Snowboard Team Erin Hamlin, U.S. Women’s Luge Kirsten Manley-Casimir, Canada Women’s Volleyball Cathy Priestner Allinger, Canada Women’s Speed Skating Sara Renner, Canada Women’s Cross Country Michelle Roark, U.S. Women’s Freestyle Skiing Angela Ruggiero, U.S. Women’s Hockey Robbi Weldon, Canada Women’s Para-Nordic Skiing Ashley Wagner, U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Katie Willis, Women’s Ski Jumpers
13 Thursday Dec 2007
Posted in 2010, human trafficking, Legalized prostitution, vancouver events
Big sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup soccer tournament are known to generate an increase in prostitution, which in turn leads to a rise in human trafficking.
A recent report by the Calgary-based The Future Group, an anti-human trafficking NGO, said that during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, authorities implemented a wide range of actions to combat human trafficking during the event, with relative success.
The result was that, while there was an increase in prostitution, authorities did not detect a rise in human trafficking.
However, when Greece hosted the Olympics in 2004, the measures adopted were not as extensive as those in Germany, and a 95 percent increase in human trafficking was recorded for that year.
Human trafficking—the biggest money spinner for organized crime after drugs and firearms—has been steadily increasing in Canada and around the world.
Canada is apparently particularly bad for human trafficking, as is Vancouver:
Sabrina Sullivan, managing director of The Future Group, says the number of people being trafficked to or through Canada each year could be as high as 16,000.
In the international human trafficking trade, Canada serves as a destination country and a transit country. It is a source country as well, with Aboriginal women, mainly from Winnipeg or rural areas, being the most likely victims.“Women from reserves are even being taken away and trafficked, either within the country or across borders,” says Sullivan.
Globally and nationally, the majority of those trafficked are women and children, including boys, and many are forced into the sex trade. It is estimated that up to four million are sold world-wide into prostitution, slavery or marriage.
Vancouver was singled out in the U.S. State Department’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report as being a destination city for trafficked persons from Asia. The report also stated that a “significant number” of victims, particularly South Korean females, transit Canada before being trafficked into the United States.
So what do we do about it? NOW’s NYC chapter is currently tackingly this problem and is doing so with great energy and sophistication. They might make a good model for action in Vancouver:
Launched in the Fall of 2006, NOW-NYC’s human trafficking campaign set out to get a state law that recognized trafficking as a crime, increase public education on this modern-day slavery, collect trafficking victims stories, access how state agencies are identifying, tracking and prioritizing this issue, and shed light on how the trafficking industry is a part of the local economy and identify the legitimate businesses that do business with traffickers.
It won’t be easy. Much like the Domestic Violence movement 25 years ago when this phenomenon didn’t have a name, much less cultural understanding, it will take the dedicated work of activists and the NOW-NYC team to raise awareness and convince legislator, law enforcement, prosecutors and the courts, this issue deserves to be a priority for civil rights.
10 Sunday Jun 2007
Posted in 2010, Environment, women's issues
Hey everyone,
I just finished reading Betty Krawczyk’s book ‘Clayquot: Sound of my heart’. Betty is a well known (and in many circles, very well loved!) 77 yr old grandmother who has fought for the environment for most of her life. She was most recently in the news for protesting the Eagleridge Bluffs Sea-to-sky highway expansion that involved bulldozing an old-growth arbutus forest as well as wetlands for the 2010 Olympics (I’m sure I will rant about the Games in a future post, they make me so angry!). She was arrested (along with a number of concerned citizens) 4 times and finally sentenced to about 10 months in prison, just outside of Vancouver.
The reason I am talking about her is that I am desperate for strong female role models at the moment. I NEED to believe that I can make a difference and I think we need to be aware of these women warriors who are changing the world RIGHT NOW.
Please check out Betty’s blog (http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com) , she is dictating her posts from jail. There are some very interesting topics to consider. She talks about the conditions in prisons, rights for incarcerated women with babies, the (BAD) food, and of course the environment. Although Betty fully knew the consequences of repeatedly protesting at Eagleridge Bluffs, I still find it extremely painful that she is in jail. Yes, technically she should be there, but ARG, she did the right thing. We all have an obligation to protect what is precious.
While what she is fighting for might not be everyone’s first interest (but it should be!!! This is obviously my own bias, but come on, this planet is in serious trouble), Betty is an extraordinary example of standing up for what she believes in, even with serious consequences. We have to find ways to ACT on these issues we are talking about!
I urge everyone to call up your local assault centre and see what they need, donate your clothes to a shelter, volunteer at a food bank, wake up each day and think about what you can do to change things.
Let us know what initiatives you are involved in/have heard of, lets light some fires under policy makers’ butts and get some CHANGE going on here.
In solidarity,
Edith
