In a great article highlighted by GOOD, we as consumers are made aware of the human rights abuses faced by farm workers in the flower industry, including sexual harassment, poverty wages, and poor workplace safety standards. As many of us contemplate which bouquet will best express our  love to our sweetheart this Valentine’s Day, we must also be conscious of issues of justice for the people who pick our flowers. Justice, as Cornel West brilliantly defines it, is “what love looks like in public.”

Unfortunately, popular floral internet companies such as 1-800-Flowers or FDT do not yet implement fair trade principles in their supply chain to ensure accountability for the human rights of floral farm workers. However, some smaller companies such as World Flowers or Inbloom Group offer fair trade certified bouquets. When we ensure that the flowers we give, the tomatoes we eat, and the sweatshirts we wear are produced with respect for the health and welfare of human beings, we can see more clearly what love really looks like in public…

Photo by L.E. Soltis

On January 12, 2010 a devastating earthquake killed approximately 300,000 people and left nearly two million homeless in Haiti. One year later, more than one million people are still living in appalling conditions in “temporary” tent cities in the capital city and surrounding areas. A report released this week by Oxfam reveals that less than 45 percent of the $2.1 billion pledged for Haiti’s reconstruction has been disbursed. In addition, “less than 5 percent of the rubble has been cleared, only 15 percent of the temporary housing that is needed has been built and relatively few permanent water and sanitation facilities have been constructed.” Adding to Haiti’s misery is the recent cholera epidemic that so far has killed nearly 3,500 people. The all-too-common tent cities are particularly dangerous for women, where gender-based violence and sexual assaults are on the rise. This short video by Amnesty International highlights the dangers women face and emphasizes that “feeling safe from sexual violence is a basic human right.”

Meanwhile, this week in the United States, six civil and human rights groups filed an emergency petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), to halt the roundups, detention, and imminent deportations of hundreds of Haitian nationals by the U.S. government. Deportations from the U.S. to Haiti have been stayed on humanitarian grounds since last year, however on December 9, 2010 the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unexpectedly announced that it would resume deportations this month. A year after one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in history, Haitians continue to struggle to have their basic human rights met.

This week, ten years ago, the United Nations passed a landmark resolution on women, peace, and security. Known as UNSCR 1325, the resolution addresses the  ways conflict impacts women and it acknowledges the critical role women play in peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peace building.

Here in the United States, our day-to-day lives look very different than that of life in countries like the DRC and Afghanistan—where women are brutalized on a daily basis in the midst of armed conflict. However, that doesn’t mean we’re not impacted by war and responsible for peace. In recognition of this, yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enumerated several concrete, precedent-setting commitments by the U.S., including $17 million to address sexual and gender-based violence in the DRC and the development of a domestic National Action Plan to accelerate implementation of UNSCR 1325 here in the United States. If these commitments materialize, the U.S. will join 23 other countries who have developed national-level strategies to ensure that women are effectively represented in the full range of peace-building and reconstruction efforts; that they are protected against sexual violence; and that they are the focus of conflict prevention, relief and reconciliation efforts.

As Clinton said in her speech to the U.N., “It’s not as though we are doing a favor for ourselves and them [women] by including women in the work of peace. This is a necessary global security imperative. Including women in the work of peace advances our national security interests, promotes political stability, economic growth, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Just as in the economic sphere, we cannot exclude the talents of half the population, neither when it comes to matters of life and death can we afford to ignore, marginalize, and dismiss the very direct contributions that women can and have made.”

In July, the United Nations boldly created a UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or “UN Women” for short. This entity has been given a broad mandate to “promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe.” Yesterday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed a strong leader to head the new organization; former President of Chile, Dr. Michelle Bachelet. While women’s rights advocates are critical of what they see as an insufficient budget for the organization, many are hopeful that under the leadership of Dr. Bachelet, UN Women will be better able to organize global efforts to forward women’s human rights and their crucial role in development. In a great blog in the Huffington Post, Nandini Oomman articulates the advantages of Dr. Bachelet’s qualifications and outlines three steps UN Women should take in the early stages of its work.

I am a woman with a job that pays a reasonable salary, provides health insurance, gives paid leave, and contributes to a growing nest egg. It just doesn’t leave me with time to clean my house. Thankfully, there are people—most often women—who can be hired to help with that. However, for these individuals, housecleaning (or any other form of domestic work including raising children) routinely means low pay, long hours, and denial of health care. And in the worst cases, it can result in severe physical abuse. As one domestic worker described, “Amid the global recession . . . we perform the necessary labor to make other work possible for American businesses and professionals. We do the very basic and vital work for any economy — taking care of the next generation, the elderly, the homes, cooking food and doing the laundry. But even in New York, our labor remains unrecognized, unprotected, and devalued.” On August 31, New York signed the US’s first law protecting domestic workers’ rights. The bill guarantees overtime pay, a minimum of one day off every seven days, three days of paid leave per year, and protections against sexual harassment and racial discrimination for the estimated 200,000 domestic workers in NY (93 percent of whom are women, 95 percent are people of color, and 99 percent are immigrants). These are more rights than domestic workers anywhere in the US, or in most of the world, have. Let’s make sure other states and countries follow in New York’s footsteps.

On this day in 1852, the day following the spectacular celebrations of July 4th, the great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass delivered one of the hallmark speeches of the anti-slavery movement, the Fifth of July speech. The speech is a profound work that weaves together both irony and powerful demands for human liberty. It is often overlooked, however, that Douglass was invited to deliver this address by the Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Society. In understanding the significance of this speech, it is thus crucial to recognize the interconnectedness among social justice movements and how the long-fought struggles for racial equality and women’s rights were able to transform popular consciousness by drawing upon principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence- namely the existence of inalienable rights and the Right of the People to alter or abolish government if it becomes destructive of securing the rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. While the speech is a most pressing condemnation of the hypocrisy of the United States- in proclaiming freedom and liberty while profiting from the cruel and exploitative practice of slavery- the echo at the conclusion of the speech inspires critical reflection of the Declaration and resounds a call to action to uphold the nation’s most fundamental principles.

“Fellow citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them… To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American Slavery…

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which lie is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”

There are many choices that, in a democratic country, should be a woman’s right to make—including the choice of what to wear and where to pray. For Muslim citizens of Western countries, however, the right to make these choices is in question. In May, the French government approved a measure to ban full-body veils (burqas, niqabs) in public. According to the leader of the French National Assembly, the ban is both necessary for public safety and a good thing for France and democracy. In response, many women’s rights activists assert that the ban is patronizing and dehumanizing for French Muslim citizens. In the US, the debate is about where Muslim women can pray. A group of Muslim women have begun organizing mosque pray-ins in an attempt to end the gender segregation that occurs in nearly two-thirds of American mosques. (Segregation in mosques is not practiced traditionally and historically in Islam. In the Grand Mosque of Mecca, Islam’s holiest shrine, women and men perform all the hajj rituals, including praying, without segregation.) In a recent Huffington Post article, Jehan Harney asserts that these activists can gain supporters “not necessarily by demanding mosques change their policies to have men and women pray side-by-side, but rather demanding mosques to give women their right to choose where to pray.”

The United Nations (UN) is in the midst of a historic reform process that has the potential to change the status quo for women’s human rights around the world. Five decades ago, the UN became a galvanizing force for protecting and promoting women’s rights by creating a framework of international laws and commitments. However, the four small UN agencies exclusively dedicated to women’s issues lack the necessary status, funding and country presence to enable the wider UN system and national authorities to fully implement their obligations. This has limited the potential for women around the world to fully enjoy their rights in practice. In September 2009, all 192 member states of the UN General Assembly finally agreed to the creation of a consolidated and stronger UN agency for women. At this moment, member states are negotiating about this new agency. The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign — a network of over 300 women’s, human rights and social justice groups from around the world — is urging the General Assembly to adopt a resolution about the agency by July 2010 and to commit to fund the entity with an annual budget of 1 billion USD. Sign the petition today to ensure that the UN gets this reform right. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to influence systematic change in women’s rights worldwide.

A peace jirga — which aims to bring together 1,500 Afghan policymakers, community leaders and elders to end the Taliban insurgency — will begin on June 2 in Kabul. The jirga will determine a reconciliation process for members of the Taliban “who are not part of al-Qaeda or any other terrorist network, who denounce violence and who will return to normal life respecting the Afghan constitution.” President Karzai asserts that this historic forum will enable Afghans to chart a way forward. At a recent meeting at the United States Institute of Peace, Karzai sought to allay fears that negotiations with the Taliban would turn Afghanistan away from its commitment to human rights. Karzai distinguished rank-and-file militants from their leadership, asserting that low-level Taliban sympathizers are “countryside boys” who are not enemies of the U.S. Although the peace jirga is slated to include at least 20 percent women, Afghan elders and community leaders have demonstrated reluctance. Many observers fear that the Afghan government, desperate for an agreement with the Taliban, will compromise on the issue of women’s rights and women will be a pawn in the negotiations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asserted that it is “essential that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.” Afghan women’s rights activists assert that “the US should not support any project, with any amount, where women are not strongly present.”

Last week the Honduran government inaugurated a truth commission to investigate the June 2009 coup. The commission will “document human rights abuses related to the coup, address grievances where they are found and consider reforms to prevent similar incidents from happening again.” Human rights groups have, however, criticized the commission. Committee for the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) states, “the only purpose of the Lobo commission is to support the Honduran regime’s continued efforts to whitewash those responsible for the coup and its violent aftermath.” Since last year’s coup, a powerful nonviolent resistance movement has emerged. Women make up the majority of the movement and play a critical leadership role. The resistance is united not just by opposition to the regime but also a positive vision of a new Honduras, characterized by this slogan: “Por un constituyente no excluyente” (For a constitutional convention that doesn’t exclude). The regime has responded with brutal repression. As of last August, women’s groups documented 249 cases of violations of women’s human rights, including beatings, sexual assault and gang rapes by police. To date, COFADEH has registered 47 assassinations of anti-coup activists. On May 10, the U.N. Human Rights Council urged protection for Honduran journalists after seven were killed in the past six weeks. The truth commission has no mandate to examine these current human rights violations.