Expression Activism: Day 3 Recap

Yesterday was day 3 of CSW57.

The first workshop i went to was the Safety for Women Journalists. The room was packed. I had the opportunity to sit at the round table. That was really interesting, as it is something I've never seen before. The panelists were experienced journalists who raised interesting points about how journalists are targets of violence, but the women journalists are more likely to experience sexual violence and intimidation. The representative from UNESCO talked about their efforts to educate and keep women journalists safe. They said that on average 2 women journalists per week have been killed over the past 10 years.. One of the participants from India mentioned a saying that really rang true for me. She said "we should have peace, not pieces". I agree completely, violence of any form tears our world apart.

The next event I went to was the Millenium Development Goals Prepatory Panel for CSW58 2014. This event was in the large room with all the representatives from the different countries. The panel talked about the MDG’s-with a thousand days remaining to complete the goals. It was so powerful and inspiring to see how many different countries were there and all the pressing questions that they had. The director of the UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, said “education is like a vaccine for girls & a necessary prevention tool”.

There was one thing I learned in particular that shocked me. There was supposed to be a child bride on the panel, but she couldn't come to the event because she didn't have any form of identification, no birth certificate, nothing to even say she existed. This was shocking because there must be thousands, maybe even millions, of people who technically “don’t exist”, so if they die… will anyone know?

Some things I learned yesterday that I found to be important include these facts (according to UNESCO):

- 69 million children don’t attend primary school 54% of them are girls

- Millions of children leave school without acquiring basic literacy and numeracy skills

- Almost 85% of young people live in developing countries.

- Over 200 million people live on less than $1 a day

- Over 500 million people live on less than $2 a day

- 300,000 children and youth under the age of 18 are currently participating in armed conflict

On the way home we took a cab, there was a very nice driver named Ally from Gambia who had asked us about if we were from CSW57. We said yes of course! He said “when women get together we’re done! We are gonna have to learn a few things”.(referring to men).