Sexual behaviour and Human Rights

Came across a thoughtful article in the September-October 2010 issue of the Japan Medical Association Journal.

The Reality of Sexuality for Teenage Girls in Japan

Hiroko KODAMA

JMAJ 53(5): 285-289, 2010

It is very easy for us to question the morality of youths these days, especially in light of the recent case of a 12-year-old suspected of having 15 sex partners.

Perhaps looking at it from the medical or health angle could come in useful.

A quote from the article

Although the promotion of reproductive health is not intended to endorse selfish sexual activities, it is important to maintain sexual health without intruding on sexual morality.

Tools and guides for organisations

Consumers International

Useful tools and guides to help consumer organisations, but these tools can also apply to any NGO out there.

Which version do you think is true?

2 reports on the same situation along the Thai-Burma border. Which one is more accurate, I wonder?

Burmese refugees sent back home

UNHCR urges Thailand against forced returns to Myanmar

Jon Stewart’s Advocacy Role in 9/11 Bill Passage

NYTimes.com
An article that highlights the role of Jon Stewart in the Zadroga Bill. He had been droning about it for the longest time, even before his Rally to Restore Sanity. Hopefully, this is just the start...

Is there a chance for something similar happening in Singapore? We can only hope.

Public Consultation on proposed Amendments to Consumer Protection Legislation

Ministry of Trade and Industry

Good to see the CPFTA being strengthened. Need to read through the details though. Hopefully, sgwatchdog can send in a submission...

Deadline is 31 January 2011.

Analysts urge closer scrutiny of landbanking business

TODAYonline
Just saw an Order from CEA (via eGazette) excluding land banking from its purview. Sad...

The TODAY article above includes a ludicrous situation.

"CEA said it has consulted the land-banking industry and considered its views on the issue in reaching its decision."

It's akin to ringing up a thief/robber to ask if he wants to be regulated. This is the same kind of attitude that has allowed timeshare companies to flourish and cheat consumers.

Speak Up, Stop Discrimination, Human Rights Day 2010

United Nations
The full Human Rights Day 2010 website is up. Nice of them to showcase the profiles of some of the human rights defenders.

Criticism is not a crime

Human Rights Day 2010
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay's comments on the theme of human rights defenders for Human Rights Day 2010.

On eve of Nobel ceremony, China cracks down and lashes out

WashingtonPost

The more China suppresses this year's Nobel peace Prize winner, the more the world is going to look at China's human rights record...

As Chinese officials intensified their denunciations of prize organizers, police summoned restaurant and bar owners to local police stations and warned against allowing large gatherings on Friday. Some lawyers, writers and academics have been stopped at airports and blocked from boarding their flights; others have been forcibly taken to the countryside. Known activists are under house arrest. And Thursday, several foreign media Web sites and television stations were blocked.

Today is Human Rights Day. This year's theme is on human rights defenders. What an apt choice, yet we seem so powerless to help Liu Xiaobo.

Maynard vs. Norman: No name-calling here

The Day
First came across this story on a segment of The Daily Show.

Did a bit of Googling, and found a local newspaper story on this. It's such a great idea to have opposing candidates debate in a civil manner; hope it'll catch on.

Dr Eric Gan Keng Seng v Singapore Medical Council [2010] SGHC 325

Singapore Law Watch

"On 12 April 2007, Mdm Neo Guat Dee (“Mdm Neo”), the Patient’s wife, lodged a complaint against Dr Gan with the SMC. The Complaints Committee, after considering the expert evidence of Dr Cheng Jun (“Dr Cheng”), specialist in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre (who later became the sole expert witness for the SMC in its case before the DC), decided that it sufficed to only issue a letter of advice to Dr Gan, advising him to review his practice.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the Complaints Committee, the Patient’s wife wrote to the Minister of Health, who invoked his powers under the Act to convene a Disciplinary Inquiry. Two charges were proffered against Dr Gan and they were set out in the Notice of Inquiry dated 12 August 2008. The first charge alleged that the Pre-cut Technique which Dr Gan had performed on the Patient was beyond the scope of his competence. However nothing in this charge should concern us here as Dr Gan was acquitted by the DC of the first charge (see [6] of GD). Of greater importance is the second charge (“the Charge”) in respect of which the DC had found Dr Gan guilty. The Charge read:

That you [Dr Gan] a registered medical practitioner under the Medical Registration Act (Cap 174), are charged that whilst practising at Alexandra Hospital and the attending physician to [the Patient] for the period 6 December 2005 to 8 December 2005, you were in wilful neglect of your duties and had grossly mismanaged the post-operative treatment of the Patient."

213.251.145.96 a.k.a. WikiLeaks

213.251.145.96
The WikiLeaks website seems to be down. A quick google search shows an alternative way to access it.

This reminds me of one of the final scenes in the V for Vendetta movie, where everyone starts to wear V's mask...

Watch, Cringe and Cry

The Huffington Post

The grainy, jerky 10-minute video, taken on a mobile phone, shows two men from Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua being horribly tortured by members of the Indonesian military. The elder of the two men screams in pain as the soldiers repeatedly burn his genitals with a smoldering piece of wood; the younger man bears a look of abject terror as a large knife is shifted from his throat to his face. No attractive realities of contemporary Indonesia are on display here, and Indonesian authorities have admitted the video is not a work of fiction.

A most vivid and powerful paragraph from the article by Sophie Richardson, Advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division.

Human rights – a central concern for the global HIV response

World Health Organization | World AIDS Day 2010

"People living with HIV should not only enjoy their right to health but also their right to access crucial social services such as education, employment, housing, social security and even asylum in some cases. Ensuring the rights of people living with HIV is good public health practice, by improving the health and well-being of those affected and by making prevention efforts more effective. A wide range of countries have enacted legislation to prevent discrimination against people living with HIV. However, in many cases, there is poor enforcements of such laws and stigmatization of people living with HIV and most-at-risk populations persist."

25th November is a special day

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It also marks the start of the White Ribbon Campaign.

25th November is also the start of "16 Days of Activism", which links 3 days below together.
- International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25th November)
- World AIDS Day (1st December)
- Human Rights Day (10th December)

But more importantly, it's AWARE's birthday, and it's 25 years old this year.

Happy Birthday. :)

Myanmar's Sham Election

International Herald Tribune
I'm quite pissed at some of the articles I've seen, about giving a chance to the elections in Burma/Myanmar. We need to call a spade a spade. Nick Clegg's op-ed piece in the link above is one that calls for continued pressure on the military junta.

Speak Up Stop Discrimination

The theme for Human Rights Day 10 December 2010 is human rights defenders who act to end discrimination.

Understanding and Preventing Mass Atrocity Crimes: A Regional Perspective

The NUS Centre for International Law is organising a talk on genocide prevention.

Date: 11 November 2010 (Thursday)
Time: 11:00am-12:30pm
Venue: NUS Bukit Timah Campus, Block B, Level 3, Executive Seminar Room

More details in the link here.

WHO simplifies treatment of mental and neurological disorders

World Health Organization
How is this related to human rights? See extract from the news release below for the clues.

"People with mental, neurological and substance use disorders are often stigmatized and subject to neglect and abuse."

The guide can be downloaded below.
mhGAP Intervention Guide for mental, neurological and substance use disorders in non-specialized health settings (PDF)

Hong Kong - Public Consultation on enhanced consumer protection legislation

The Hong Kong government is launching a public consultation on proposals to strengthen its consumer protection legislation to tackle unfair trade practices.

The consultation paper
http://www.cedb.gov.hk/citb/ehtml/pdf/consultation/Consultation_Paper_07_15_e.PDF

There's also a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ConsumerProtectionReview.

Tools and tactics for your digital security

Security In A Box

Security in-a-box is one of a few toolkits crafted by the Tactical Technology Collective, the same group that did the 10 tactics film highlighted in the post below.

What I like about this toolkit is the way it's written. Each topic has a nicely-written background scenario, like the one below.

Assani is a human rights activist in a Francophone African country. His two teenage children, Salima and Muhindo, have offered to help him with some routine computer work he has been asked to do. After seeing the state of his computer, they offer to teach him the basics of how to keep it healthy and functional. Assani also likes the idea of using Free and Open Source Software, but he's not sure whether that would be more or less secure, so he asks for their advice.

Quite cool, if you ask me.

BlackBerry Bans Suggest a Scary Precedent: Crypto Wars Again?

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The proposed bans on Blackberry service in several countries suddenly got me thinking; how are such transmissions monitored in Singapore?

Anyway, it really is sad that we allow governments around the world free rein to wiretap ordinary civilians just because they brandish the 'terrorist' card.

10 tactics for turning information into action

1. mobilise people
2. witness and record
3. visualise your message
4. amplify personal stories
5. just add humour
6. manage your contacts
7. use complex data
8. use collective intelligence
9. let people ask the questions
10. investigate and expose

Why should death sentences be mandatory?

TODAYonline
A commentary piece that asks for more discretion to be given to our judges. For me, besides the human rights angle to the issue, I think the simple way to advocate to the man on the street is to highlight that the death penalty is not reversible. For example, if new evidence is found after a person is executed, it is not possible to undo the sentence.

Burma annuls Suu Kyi poll victory

BBC NEWS
It seems the so-called "elections" in Burma this year will simply be a process to entrench the rule of the military junta.

A Women's Day forgotten?

Yesterday, I was having dinner at home at 9pm. My mum was watching the Channel U news. She remarked that it was Women's Day. I told her to see if there was any coverage on the TV news. By the end of the half-hour news, we heard no mention of it at all.

This morning, I took a quick check on ChannelNewsAsia (Chinese) and Straits Times, even The Online Citizen; no coverage :(

Was it because women's issues were no longer serious problem, i.e. women now have it good?

Sadly, it isn't so.

The stats below (a little outdated) show that women generally earn 73% of what men earn.
http://app.mcys.gov.sg/web/Women_Economy_17.asp

This statistic, simplistic as it may be; but it highlights that Singapore has a long way to go before we can start thinking about forgetting Women's Day.

Gendercide - The worldwide war on baby girls

economist.com
The most extreme form of discrimination against women...

11 Myths and Facts about Feminism

Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE)

This appeared in my inbox today, courtesy of a Google Alert. Great explanation of common misconceptions about feminism. I like this one below.

Myth: The fact that there are some women who have a higher social and economic status than some men means inequality has been eliminated.

Fact: Systematic inequalities continue to exist at every level of society. There may be female heads of Fortune 500 companies but the fact that they constitute less than 5% of the total means that barriers remain.

A recent visit to the ISEAS website also reveals a recent bulletin (PDF) from the Gender Studies Programme. The feature article highlights several worrying trends in ASEAN. One particular example is the seemingly bigger gender gap in countries which are more developed.

Disclosure: I am a AWARE member. [and proud to be one] :)

Equality and Human Rights Commission urges review of torture case

BBC NEWS

The independent watchdog has called for a review of the alleged collusion between the UK and other governments regarding torture cases.

Caution against improper weight control

Department of Health, Hong Kong

One wonders why people would consider consuming products containing parasites for weight control.

A department spokesman said infestation of parasites, such as Ascaris, as slimming means had no scientific basis. On the contrary, it could cause abdominal pain and distention, vomiting, diarrhoea and malnutrition.

Safety and good health comes first.

Taking an 'inner-tube taxi' to Thailand

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific |

The key point of the article is the last paragraph on sanctions.

World Health Day campaign: 1000 Cities, 1000 Lives

WHO | World Health Day – 7 April 2010

Urbanisation and health is a nice fresh theme to choose. WHO's blurb below

Virtually all population growth over the next 30 years will be in urban areas, signaling that urbanization is here to stay. It is associated with many health challenges related to water, environment, violence and injury, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, harmful use of alcohol as well as the risks associated with disease outbreaks.

Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

United Nations

New UN website on the issue of sexual abuse.

Consumer protection news around the world

MemberPressReview-DEC2009.pdf

Consumers International rounds up issues highlighted by its member organisations, and presents them in an easy to digest format. Do take a look.

Burma's Political Prisoners

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
The FCO of the UK government is carrying out a campaign to highlight the political prisoners in the run-up to elections in Burma this year.

More details on this FCO webpage.

Import of candy containing light bulb

AVA Circular (pdf)
I'm struggling to wonder why a manufacturer will produce a candy which contains a light bulb. Glad to see the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) releasing a warning, but I didn't see it mentioned in the media yet.

liberty central

guardian.co.uk

liberty central is the section in the Guardian newspaper website dealing with civil liberties and human rights issues. One useful sub-section is a legal clinic dedicated to answering questions on human rights.