The Zonta Club of Joliet worked hard over nine months to bring this new club to fruition. “As the SOM Chair,” said Mary Baudino, immediate past president of the Joliet Club, “I reached out to possible members and presented them with information so they could develop a real understanding of Zonta and their opportunity to make a difference at a local level to advance the status of women through service and advocacy.”

The new members met on January 31 at Zonta International, along with guests from several clubs, including the Zonta International Board, for the formal Chartering Ceremony, in which the club was presented with its official charter, the president, Jodie Needham, was presented with the gavel, and all members were presented with membership pins.

“We are proud to become members of this great organization,” said Needham, Assistant Dean for Academic Services at John Marshall Law School. She was a member of the Joliet Club for a short time, and was eager to renew her membership.

Members of the new Zonta Club of Oak Brook will have the opportunity to participate in service and advocacy efforts through fundraising projects in the local community. They’ll meet and work with other business and professional people who share a commitment to working for women’s rights and gender equality. The Zonta Club of Oak Brook joins six other Zonta clubs in the northeastern area of Illinois.

For more information about the Zonta Club of Oak Brook, please visit www.zontadistrict6.org and for more information about Zonta and its projects, please visit www.zonta.org.

LOCATION: The Grotto, Oak Brook, IL

Zonta International invites you to join professionals from the business and non-profit sectors for a special breakfast in commemoration of International Women’s Day, a day on which women and men around the world celebrate the many advancements women have made toward gender equality while exploring the challenges women continue to face today.

Featured guests will include Zonta International President Dianne Curtis, UNICEF representative Dawne Bunn, and former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Manager Dr. Sharon Langenbeck.

The Grotto is located at 3011 Butterfield Road, Oak Brook, IL 60523.

Tickets are free but space is limited! RSVP now to assure your reservation! Place your reservations by February 16, providing your name, e-mail and number of tickets, to zontaintl@zonta.org, or call 630-928-1400. Event sponsorships are available; come and be associated with a great organization!

The event will be at the Jacob Henry Mansion Estate, in the Victorian Ballroom, at 15 S. Richards St., Joliet, IL.

Tickets are $60.00 per person and can be purchased from any Joliet Zonta Club member. Sponsorships at $250 each are still available! Please see www.jolietzonta.com for information. You can e-mail Beth Colvin, at bclvn26@aol.com for tickets and sponsorship information.

A cash raffle and attractive auction packages will be available at the event. Winners need not be present to win.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced legislation that would criminalize the transportation of young girls out of the United States to receive female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures. The Girls Protection Act would serve as a follow up to legislation passed in 1996 that outlawed the practice of FGM in the United States. The bill proposes fines and up to five years in prison for those who violate the law.

Senator Reid stated, “While it is difficult to know precisely how many girls in the United States are at risk of being subject to FGM, estimates from various sources suggest that approximately 200,000 women living in the United States have been, or are at risk, of being subject to FGM.”

Internationally, an estimated 100 million to 140 million women and girls have undergone an FGM procedure, with the practice widely being regarded as a human rights violation. The procedure, which involves the partial or total removal of external genitalia, is designed to decrease women’s sexual desire and is seen in many cultures as essential for a women’s suitability for marriage. The practice is also known to both increase the risk of HIV transmission and infant and maternal mortality rates.

Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) introduced legislation to strengthen protections for victims of sexual assault in the military. The bill would transfer “the reporting, oversight, investigation, and victim care of sexual assaults out of the hands of the normal chain of command and place jurisdiction in the hands of an autonomous Sexual Assault Oversight and Response Office.” The Office would be staffed by both civilian and military experts. Moreover, the bill calls for the creation of a sexual assault database, maintained by the Department of Defense (DoD) for the purpose of sharing information with the Department of Justice (DoJ) sex offender database, which contains the names of civilians.

Congresswoman Speier held a press conference today regarding the legislation. She stated, “Despite 25 years of Pentagon studies, task force recommendations and congressional hearings, sexual assaults and rape in the military continue unabated…The failure to respond in a judicial manner to sexual violence, is more than an injustice, it is, according to some of our highest ranked military leaders, a threat to our military readiness. Members of military unites live on, survive on the code of watching out for each other. When sexual assaults and rapes are hushed or ignored, trust in a unit is compromised with its collective readiness to engage the enemy.”

The Pentagon’s “Fiscal Year 2010 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military” indicated that approximately 3,000 women experienced sexual assault in fiscal year 2008, which is a 9 percent increase from the previous year. For women in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rate of sexual assaults by US military personnel increased by 25 percent.

According to a 2003 study by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, at least one-third of all women veterans have experienced rape or sexual assault during their service primarily from US service personnel, and thirty percent of military women experience domestic violence. Moreover, rape occurs in the military nearly twice as often as in the civilian world. Members of the US House of Representatives, including Jackie Speier (D-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) have pressed the military to address sexualized violence.

“Advocacy is the expression of support for or opposition to a cause, argument or proposal. Advocacy may include influencing laws, legislation or attitudes.”

Zonta Clubs are urged to express themselves about and become involved in issues which:

• improve the legal, political, economic, educational, health and professional status of women;
• advance understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of executives in business and the professions; and
• promote justice and universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Zonta Clubs must remain nonpartisan and nonsectarian in advocacy action and on issues.

Awareness includes becoming educated about issues affecting the status of women as well as becoming educated about opportunities for legislative advocacy.

To read all of Zonta International’s Policies and Guidelines regarding Legislative Awareness and Advocacy: www.zonta.org/MemberResources/Tools/AdvocacyTools.aspx

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) will introduce a bipartisan bill today to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The Violence Against Women Act is due to expire at the end of this year.

VAWA was originally drafted by then-Senator Joe Biden and was passed into law in 1994. It was then reauthorized by Congress in both 2000 and 2005. The law allocates $1.6 million to improve federal, state, and local-level investigation and prosecution of domestic violence cases and to provide support for shelters, rape crisis centers and community services for domestic violence survivors.

It is estimated that every nine seconds, a woman is abused in the United States and nearly one-third of women in the United States report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend some time in their lives. Since the passage of VAWA, the rate of intimate partner violence has dropped by 53 percent.

Title:

Join us and…
Meet the challenge of Governor Yvonne Chalfant with the Four Great Zonta Questions (4GZQ):

What are you doing?
What in the WORLD are you doing?
Who do you think you are?
What will you think of next?
Let’s explore the crossroads our clubs may travel. Let’s gain insights into the great opportunities that crossroads afford us.

You will be given some great tools and roadmaps to help you navigate the 4GZQs – to help your club prosper and grow!

Join us for the journey … and stay for the fun!

Start Date: 2011-10-07
End Date: 2011-10-09