Resumen

The social work profession with the United States (US) has seen laudable efforts to increase voter engagement (Abramovitz, et. al., 2019), including with university students (Hill, et. al., 2019; Hylton, et. al., 2018; Lane, et. al., 2019). This push reflects a commitment to promote political power through voter engagement (Lane, et. al., 2007). Civic knowledge has been shown to promote voter engagement (CIRCLE, 2013).  Knowledge of the processes and policies that govern elections and voting in an important component of civic knowledge. This specific form of civic knowledge, which will be referred to as electoral knowledge, emphasizes the participatory ideals imperative to democracy, including the role of voting in a democracy, the exercise of political power, and the realization of social justice.  While efforts to engage students in voting have increased, little is known regarding what these students understand about elections and voting. This study sought to explore the electoral knowledge of university students as well as how this knowledge influences voter engagement among these students.  The study employed a cross-sectional survey design with students enrolled in a public university in the eastern US. Students were asked to complete a 32-item online survey measuring their knowledge of elections and voting rights, as well as their engagement in voting and perceptions of electoral integrity. Two hundred and sixty-three students completed the survey.   Students evidenced moderate understanding of elections and voting rights. While they were likely to understand basic election facts, they were far less likely to understand the rights of specific vulnerable populations or where voter registration can legally happen. This finding supports increased coverage of voting rights and laws governing nonpartisan voter engagement. Furthermore, students in this study were concerned about threats to elections. Educators should explore these threats directly, with specific attention to how voter suppression  impacts vulnerable populations.

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Electoral Knowledge, Voter Engagement, Voting Rights, Elections, Voter Suppression, Voting

Resumen

In 2016 Colombia adopted the Final Peace Agreement between the government and the armed group FARC to end the world’s longest civil war.  Although there is an emerging consensus that women have played different roles in the armed conflict, peace agreement, reparation, and reconciliation as victims and actors/agents, this has not been systematically explored.  This paper uses Feminist Popular Education (FPE) principles and approaches to examine this proposition.  It explores how women NGOs, movements and advocacy groups have used FPE to engage women in critical reflection of their memories, roles, resistance, and activism to challenge masculinities and transform gender inequalities around armed conflict, peace, and transitional justice.  An environmental scan of tertiary data from seven women’s organizations during the last 30 years was used to analyze gender inequality and women’s transformation.  We further built a timeline using the seven principles of FPE to systematize the data on gender educational inequalities and women’s involvement around four critical times of the armed conflict.  These included the pre-constitutional reform (1991), women and transitional justice (2011), peace agreement (2016), and nowadays reparation and reconciliation.  The timeline captured how FPE became an educational, political tool to create a space and a mechanism to articulate women’s concerns and demands to grow into active agents and get their transformation.  The paper ends with a critical elaboration on women’s empowerment in different states of the armed conflict and how FPE could promote women’s agency to mitigate the political, social, and historical context of gender inequality. 

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Armed conflict, Peace, Women's Activism, Feminist Popular Education, Women's Agency, Environmental Scan, Systematized Experiences.

Resumen

Menstrual health has been described as integral to achieving global health, gender equity and the Sustainable \ Development\ Goals (SDGs), with increasing recognition of menstruation as a critical element in achieving social justice outcomes. Social work is a profession concerned with social justice, human rights, and gender equity, but the extent to which the profession has engaged with menstruation as a human rights issue remains unclear.\ This research\ systematically analysed published literature to examine social work engagement with the topic of menstruation and associated issues related to social justice and human rights, including issues around equity and stigma, hygiene, and access to sanitary products. A systematic and comprehensive literature search was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guidelines for scoping literature reviews.\ This\ presentation explores findings of this review, which demonstrate that menstrual experience - despite being characterised by injustice - is an under-represented issue in social work discourse. These findings indicate a need for the profession to address this gap through holistic, transformative practice to achieve menstrual justice through the elimination of the stigma of menstruation, the prevention of discrimination, and the enhancement of gender equity. This research highlights opportunities for the profession to\ consider potential contributions social work could make to not only advance the SDGs but realise professional goals related to social justice, gender equity, and human rights.\ \ 

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Menstruation, advocacy, gender equity, social justice, human rights

Resumen

Women often relate to criminal justice systems as victims of crime. Trends indicate that a growing number are featured as suspects, accused and prisoners. The percentage of women in prison is growing globally and at a faster rate than the male prison population. While the global prison population grew by approximately 21 percent from 2000 to 2016, that of imprisoned women and girls grew by 53 percent during the same period (Walmsley, 2017). A dramatic increase in the number of women and girls in prison worldwide raises questions about criminal codes, the functioning of criminal justice systems, and socio-economic factors affecting crime rates.Locally, the common offenses for which they were imprisoned are drug-related cases, illegal recruitment, theft, robbery, and violation of Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act. Women are likewise detained in Police Stations for drugs, theft, quarantine violations, gambling, homicide, and violation of Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases. Cases were settled in the villages involving minor offenses.Women in conflict with the law have been suffering from gendered pathways primarily due to discriminatory laws and violence against women they were subjected to early years of their lives.Inadequate supply of hygiene kits, irregular psychosocial services, underutilized non-custodial measures, and lack of coordinated response on reintegration remain unattended.\ Hygiene kits provision, feminist counseling, and policy advocacy on non-custodial measures and follow through on the implementing guidelines of the Women In Detention provision of the Women Development Code of Davao City through legislative and executive actions are critical elements the social workers pursue in order to demonstrate amplification of the UN Bangkok Rules on Women Deprived of Liberty and those in conflict with the law. Inclusive social policy and legislation at the local level are explored.

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women human rights, policy advocacy, social activism