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THE BELOW (updated 12 MAR 2022)
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi
figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da
qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so
called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali
The Guardian
By John Duerden
14 Apr 2022
<<‘Change the vision’: Iran Women push to break football barriers amid
fan ban. Maryam Irandoost believes her team can close gap to the best
and help to ensure female supporters are allowed in stadiums
emale fans not being allowed inside stadiums has long been the
overriding international image when it comes to women and football in
Iran and unsurprisingly so. Just over two weeks ago a number of Iranian
women tried to get into the Imam Reza Stadium in the north-eastern city
of Mashhad to watch the men play their final 2022 World Cup qualifier
against Lebanon. They could not see the game – the ban has largely been
in place since not long after the 1979 revolution – and then, according
to some reports, they were treated to pepper spray by security guards.
Despite requests from Fifa, criticism from around the world and calls
from the players, authorities have yet to budge. Now, though, Iranian
women are competing around the world and aiming to change minds in
Tehran. In January, the national team played at the Women’s Asian Cup,
their first international tournament. The opening game produced a
creditable 0-0 draw with India in Mumbai. A Covid outbreak meant the
hosts withdrew from the competition and their results were voided. For
Iran, it meant that only their 7-0 and 5-0 losses at the hands of the
eventual winners, China, and Taiwan respectively will go down in the
record books. There was more to it than mere scorelines however. The
coach, Maryam Irandoost, is confident the more the women play
competitively around Asia, and one day the world, the greater the push
will be to introduce equality in the stands back home, where the regime
has made the occasional gesture in allowing women inside only to
backtrack soon after. <I have tried for years to change this,> she says.
<Our girls qualifying for and playing in the Asian Cup has changed the
beliefs of a lot of people in Iran and I think this barrier will
disappear in the near future.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/apr/14/change-the-vision-iran-women-push-to-break-football-barriers-despite-fan-ban
Al jazeera
By Aisyah Llewellyn
14 Apr 2022
<<Explainer: Why is Indonesia’s sexual violence law so important?
The law, which took 10 years to pass, provides protections to victims of
sexual violence including those in abusive marriages.
Medan, Indonesia – With the strike of a gavel, Indonesia’s controversial
sexual violence bill has been passed into law by parliament. As
legislators took to their feet on Tuesday to applaud the passage of the
long-awaited bill, House Speaker Puan Maharani appeared visibly moved.
The legislation was <a gift for all Indonesian women,> she said.
The bill, known as RUU TPKS, has been a long time coming.
First proposed in 2012, it faced stiff opposition from conservative
groups who argued over everything from its name to the contents of the
law itself, requiring repeated revisions in an effort to ease its
passage. Elizabeth Ghozali, a lecturer in criminal law at Santo Thomas
Catholic University in the city of Medan, told Al Jazeera that the bill
was a landmark piece of legislation that finally puts the rights of
victims first. <Previously, Indonesian law was only focused on
punishment in sexual violence cases. That was seen as the entire scope
of the law and a sign that it had done its job,> she said. <We need
progressive law in Indonesia that thinks about the victims and
accommodates their rights.>
What does the law cover?
The new law sets out nine different kinds of sexual abuse, including
physical and non-physical sexual abuse, forced contraception, forced
sterilisation, forced marriage, sexual torture, sexual exploitation,
sexual slavery and sexual abuse through electronic means.
....
The law also recognises other forms of sexual abuse such as rape,
obscenity, sexual violence against children, pornography, and forced
prostitution, although these are also included under different sections
of Indonesia’s Criminal Code and other specific laws such as Indonesia’s
Child Protection Law.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/14/explainer-why-is-indonesias-sexual-violence-law-so-important
And read also this related article (is link to):
Indonesia passes landmark bill to tackle sexual violence
The Guardian
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
11 Apr 2022
<<Opinion
Global development
Women are expected to keep their mouths shut here in Somalia. But not
any more.
By Nasrin Mohamed Ahmed
Somalia’s first woman to head a media house explains how she beat the
odds to become a journalist and why Bilan was set up. I really do not
care whether men are interested in our stories or not. They are already
well provided for by hundreds of other Somali media outlets if their
only interest is politics and the endless, unproductive squabbling it
involves. Bilan’s target audience is society as a whole, not just
middle-aged men. Our media’s obsession with politics is like a disease.
It contributes to Somalia’s everlasting conflict because so many
journalists take sides, provoking hatred and deepening di-visions. It is
sad that our country needs a women-only media house but that is the
reality here. Women are expected to babble all they like in the kitchen
but to keep their mouths firmly shut in public.
For the first time, we have a space where we feel safe, physically and
mentally. Never before have Somali female journalists been given the
freedom, opportunity and power to decide what stories they want to tell
and how they want to tell them. I have been a journalist since I was a
teenager in secondary school. In the 12 years I have been working, there
have been stories I have never been able to tell. At last, we can report
on the young girls who are brought from the bush to work as maids in the
big houses of Mogadishu, where they are abused and beaten. We will
address taboo topics such as postnatal depression and child abuse. We
will tell the untold stories of the remarkable women in rural areas who
set up businesses to feed their families after their men go off to
fight. One reason why women’s stories are rarely told in the Somali
media is that most reporters are men. Bilan will change that. Women will
speak to us because we too are women. They will allow us into their
homes, their prayer rooms and their private spaces. I am a strong woman.
I play football, ride motorbikes and manage a gym. But I have had to
fight many battles as a female journalist. One was related to the rape
of a child. An eight-year-old girl was brought by her parents from the
far north of Somalia to hospital in Mogadishu after she was raped. This
was unusual as such abuse is usually kept secret because of the shame it
brings to families and clans. The minister for women visited the girl in
hospital and vowed that justice would be done. This was also unusual as
justice sometimes works the other way around in Somalia, where women
have been arrested for reporting rape. I decided to make this the
headline. Male colleagues ordered me to put it at the bottom, saying it
was <just a community story>. I refused, I stood my ground and I won.
But it was a tough fight.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/11/women-are-expected-to-keep-their-mouths-shut-here-in-somalia-but-not-any-more
BBC NEWS
8 Apr 2022
<<Sabina Nessa: Man jailed for murdering London teacher.
A man who drove to London in order to attack a stranger has been jailed
for life with a minimum term of 36 years for the murder of primary
school teacher Sabina Nessa. Koci Selamaj, 36, killed Ms Nessa in a park
in Kidbrooke, south-east London in September 2021.
CCTV footage captured him striking the 28-year-old over the head until
she was unconscious, before carrying her away. He then strangled her,
removed some of her clothes and tried to hide her body. Selamaj, a
garage worker from Eastbourne in East Sussex, travelled to London on 17
September intending to assault a random woman after he was spurned by
his estranged wife, the Old Bailey heard. Ms Nessa, who taught a year
one class at Rushey Green Primary School in Catford, was found nearly 24
hours later near a community centre in the park. Days later, Selamaj,
from Eastbourne in East Sussex, was arrested in the seaside town. He
pleaded guilty in February to her murder. On Friday, he refused to come
to the Old Bailey and was sentenced in his absence. Mr Justice Sweeney
described the <savage> attack as sexually motivated. He said Ms Nessa
was the <wholly blameless victim of an absolutely appalling murder which
was entirely the fault of the defendant>. It is believed Ms Nessa had
only gone through the park as she was running late and this was the
quickest route to the bar where she had been due to meet a friend.
Grainy footage showed a hooded man passing her, looking back at her, and
running toward her before hitting her over the head 34 times in quick
succession. He used such force that parts of the weapon - a metal
traffic triangle - shattered and fell to the ground, the Met Police
said. Ten minutes after dragging Ms Nessa away, Selamaj reappeared on
camera and began picking up pieces of the murder weapon from the floor.
He also used tissues to clean the bench where part of the attack had
taken place. On his way back to the south coast, Selamaj dumped the
warning triangle in the River Teise in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Police
said he appeared to be <calm and collected> on his arrest. On being
cautioned through an interpreter, the Albanian national said: <What will
happen if I open up now and say everything?> Lewis Power QC said his
client Selamaj had provided no explanation for why he killed Ms Nessa,
adding: <He simply accepts that he did it.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61021379
Al Jazeera
8 Apr 2022
By Moulid Hujale
<<Ayuuto: The Somali female money lending manual on braving crisis
As drought and famine continue to plague Somalia, women are using a
centuries-old scheme to help each other.
Mogadishu, Somalia – Once every month, a group of 10 women gather at the
makeshift shelter of Layla Hussein Tawane in a camp for in-ternally
displaced people in Mogadishu. Each of them brings $10 to contribute to
a common pot. Tawane, the group’s leader, hands over the total money to
one person and the next collection goes to another in a similar process
until every member receives their pot. Across the camp and in cities
across Somalia, there are similar groups meeting about the same time.
Known as Hagbad or Ayuuto (Somali for <help>, with roots in the Italian
word <aiuto>) in Somali culture, it is an interest-free rotating savings
scheme based on mutual trust. It is primarily run by women in the same
neighbourhood who not only know one another but also share common
experiences. <At the beginning of every month when we meet to collect
the money, we discuss the challenges we are facing including the
security situation of the camp, said Tawane. ‘We also talk about our
children and their education. More importantly, we listen to each other
and offer help where we can.> Last month one of the members, a mother of
five, asked for a loan to help save her small grocery which was almost
closing down due to financial problems. The group agreed to lend her
some money from the pot, which she started to repay in small amounts
after seven days. These women were among the thousands displaced by
Somalia’s worsening drought situation and they fled with their children
to the capital after losing their livelihoods. Since 1991 when the
central government was overthrown, Somalis have been caught in an
endless cycle of political instability, terrorism, famine and recurring
droughts, each exacerbating the others. Currently, almost three million
internally displaced people are scattered in more than 2,400 camping
settlements across the country.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/4/8/ayuuto-the-somali-female-social-lending-manual-on-braving-crisis
Al Jazeera
7 Apr 2022
<<Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman on US top court
US Senate confirms Jackson to the Supreme Court in what Democratic Party
leader calls ‘joyous day’ for the country. The United States Senate has
confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the US Supreme Court,
making her the first Black woman in the nation’s history to serve on its
highest court.
The Senate confirmed Jackson’s historic nomination in a 53-47 vote on
Thursday afternoon. Beyond breaking barriers as the first Black wo-man
on the bench, 51-year-old Jackson also is now only the third Black
American ever to serve as a Supreme Court justice. <This is a wonderful
day, a joyous day and an inspiring day for the Senate with the Supreme
Court and for the United States of America,> Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer said. <Judge Jackson is in every sense and by all measures
a brilliant jurist.> Jackson’s confirmation process highlighted deep
partisan divisions in the US, with Republicans seeking to paint the
longtime jurist and US appeals court judge as a <radical>, while
Democrats stood staunchly behind her. While most Republicans on Thursday
voted against her joining the top court, three GOP senators – Susan
Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Utah’s Mitt Romney –
voted in favour on Thursday, effectively sealing her nomination in the
evenly-divided chamber.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/7/us-senate-expected-to-vote-to-confirm-ketanji-brown-jackson
And also the bollow article:
Al Jazeera
7 Apr 2022
Sahar Aziz
Professor of law and Chancellor's Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law
School.
<<Judge Brown Jackson and America’s moment of racial reckoning
The hounding of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by conservatives who say
‘race does not matter’ was a side effect of our current moment of racial
reckoning.
Today, the United States is experiencing a new moment of racial
reckoning. A rapidly diversifying population is demanding systemic
equity and meaningful access to constitutional freedoms. This
transformation for the better is neither complete nor progressing
without resistance. In an historic first, an African American woman,
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
Her nomination to the highest judicial body of the nation is rightfully
seen as a product of the United States’ current moment of racial
reckoning. Despite being well-qualified for the position, she has
baselessly been accused of incompetence, faced heightened scrutiny and
has needlessly been subjected to questions on Critical Race Theory –
only because she is a Black woman. Some within our nation, especially
conservative politicians, however, still insist that moments of racial
reckoning are a thing of the past and <race no longer matters in the
US>.Of course, regardless of what they may claim for political capital,
as the racially charged hounding of Judge Jackson during her
confirmation hearing once again laid bare for everyone to see, race does
matter in the US – a lot.
Racial reckoning: An American tradition
As defined by Professor Edward Bonilla-Silva, race is <an organizing
principle of social relationships that shapes the identity of individual
actors at the micro level and shapes all spheres of social life at the
macro level>. The US has always been and still is a racialised social
system in which <economic, political, social, and ideological levels are
partially structured by the placement of actors in racial categories or
races>. Thus, in American society, different races experience posi-tions
of subordination and superordination. As I explain in The Racial Muslim:
When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, this racialisation creates a
hierarchy within society and leads to systemic inequality.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/4/7/judge-jackson-and-americas-current-moment-of-racial-reckoning
The Guardian
7 Apr 2022
By Ella Fox-Martens
<<Stage
‘Still a work in progress’: what has #MeToo done for women in theatre?
The Harvey Weinstein scandal was supposed to usher in a reckoning for
the industry. But while some headway has been made, meaningful change
has proved elusive. When Suzie Miller wrote Prima Facie, she says she
<never really believed it would go on>. The Australian play, which has
its UK premiere at the Harold Pinter theatre this week, is a striking
one-woman show that follows Tessa (played by Jodie Comer), a
working-class barrister, and her ex-perience of sexual assault after
years of defending accused rapists. <Writing from a woman’s point of
view about sexual harassment was not produce-able,> she says. <Nobody
wanted to go see a ‘rape play’.> Then, in October 2017, the New York
Times ran an exposé of Harvey Weinstein, and the ensuing #MeToo movement
prompted a reckoning in many industries. UK film and theatre
institutions expressed a desire to enact meaningful change, both on and
off stage. “I think #MeToo has created a world where suddenly women can
be heard,” says Miller. It felt like a real turning point. Not only were
narratives of sexual abuse – long regarded as too risky for commercial
theatre audiences – being listened to, they were actively being sought
out. Many of the plays staged in the wake of the #MeToo movement focused
on Weinstein and his victims, with some of the most successful works
originating from women with personal experience of the producer’s
crimes. In Snatches, a series of monologues curated by Vicky
Featherstone, Weinstein survivor Romola Garai performed a scene in which
a young actor is invited to meet a senior producer in his hotel room.
Another Weinstein survivor, Rose McGowan, staged her own one-woman show,
Planet 9, at the 2019 Edinburgh fringe, to a positive reception. But the
male-dominated theatre establishment did produce some more dubious
responses. Steven Berkoff’s Harvey and David Mamet’s Bitter Wheat – both
written immediately after the news had broken – directly invoke
Weinstein, turning him into a main character, and thus shifting focus
away from the victims to the perpetrator. Both Berkoff and Mamet were
accused of rehashing the #MeToo revelations for entertainment,
delivering work that, in the words of one critic, was intended to
inflame discourse through <courting scandal by inertia>. Harvey is a
one-man monologue, forcing audiences to linger in the mind of a sexual
predator as he makes excuses for himself, while Bitter Wheat treats its
loathsome protagonist, rapist Barney Fein, as a figure of twin
fascination and disgust. “The world has been shaped for thousands of
years by the male perspective,” Miller says. <The patriarchy has
profoundly silenced women.> Theatrical works about sexual assault
continue to be marketed using #MeToo as a reference point, even in the
title in some cases. The problem with presenting sexual assault
narratives through the lens of the hashtag is that it limits the scope
of the problem, reducing systemic inequality down to the spectre of
Weinstein, implying that the removal of a few “bad eggs” can eradicate
the issue. Indeed, some influential names have been forced to step down.
Most notably, the former artistic director of London’s Royal Court
theatre, Max Stafford-Clark, who was forced out of his Out of Joint
theatre company after a formal complaint that he made lewd comments to a
member of staff. But the fundamental changes that #MeToo promised have
not been as meaningful or lasting as many in the industry hoped, and
allegations of rape and sexual misconduct have continued to plague the
industry.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/apr/07/me-too-have-things-changed-for-women-in-theatre
Al Jazeera
By Maziar Motamedi
3 Apr 2022
<<Iranian women denounce violence in film industry. The women say
violence and harassment at work have become endemic, call for reforms
and accountability.
Tehran, Iran – Hundreds of women working in Iranian cinema have slammed
<systematic> violence against women in the film industry and called for
mechanisms that would make perpetrators and enablers accountable. In a
strongly-worded statement on Friday, more than 200 women – including
some of the most well-known Iranian actresses locally and
internationally – condemned sexual violence and harassment, which they
said has become endemic in Iranian cinema. <Not only is there no
mechanism to prevent powerful individuals from committing violence,
there is also a non-written agreement that inflicting violence against
women in work spaces has been normalised, with no serious ramifications
threatening the aggressor,> they wrote. Among the signatories are
Taraneh Alidoosti – who had a leading role in Asghar Farhadi’s
Oscar-winning The Salesman in 2016 – Hedieh Tehrani, Niki Karimi and
Pouran Derakhshandeh, all household names in Iranian cinema. The women
also denounced financial inequality and disparity in decision-making
powers with male peers, and demanded <this most basic human right,
meaning working in a safe space away from bullying and violence and
sexual extortion>. They urged industry figures to mobilise through
entities such as the Iranian Alliance of Motion Picture Guilds to form a
female-majority committee consisting of people educated in dealing with
sexual violence that would securely and privately receive and review
claims of aggression. They also proposed adding mechanisms in movie
contracts to shield women and make aggressors accountable through
financial penalties and suspension from future work in the industry.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/3/iranian-women-call-for-accountability-in-film-industry
Al Jazeera
03 Apr 2022
By Sanem Maher
<<‘Not a quitter’: The Karachi doctor taking rapists to court
In an old surgical wing, Dr Summaiya Syed faces great odds to bring
justice to rape victims.
Warning: This article includes details about sexual abuse that some
readers may find disturbing.
The toys on the desk are <ice-breakers> for the children, the doctor
tells me. A beaded bracelet, a small toy skull, chalky white dental
moulds, a glass shaped like a lightbulb with a green candy-striped
straw. When her son and daughter were younger and would eat McDonalds’
Happy Meals, Dr Summaiya Syed would save the toys from them and bring
them to work to add to the stash. She would buy dolls and hand them to a
child sitting across from her in the hospital room and play a game. The
doll has been hurt. <Can you show me where it is hurting?> she would
ask. <Did someone touch the doll?> If the child showed her where it
hurt, where the doll had felt an unwanted grasp, Dr Summaiya would ask,
<Who did this to the doll?> There are no dolls here today. The children
keep them when they leave the hospital. Dr Summaiya has been a woman
medico-legal officer (WMLO) for 23 years. The bespectacled 50-year-old
doctor looks like a kindly but firm teacher. She has a warm smile and
she patiently answers questions, but when a visitor asks her to tweak
the rules just a little for some paperwork he needs, she adamantly
refuses. On the day we meet, her hair is pulled back in a bun and she is
wearing a casual orange and black kameez with black jeans and sandals.
Dupattas only get in the way, she says. The door to her office does not
remain closed for long, with staff popping in to run a decision by her
or give updates on a case. Some of them call her ‘Sir’. She answers
their queries and picks up the thread of our conversation without pause.
If I’m waiting for a lull to begin asking my questions, I’ll be here a
while. <We don’t stop for anyone,> she says.
....
Not everyone thought that. This is a job where you get your hands dirty.
<The MLO sits in the bowels of society,> Dr Summaiya explains. <I’ve
seen bodies with heroin capsules in their abdomen, I’ve dealt with
new-born children thrown on rubbish dumps, battered women, we go to
graveyards for exhumations, you have to deal with the police and go to
court to present your findings…> She trails off.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/4/3/not-a-quitter-the-karachi-doctor-taking-rapists-to-court
Women's Media Centre
By Debbie Hines
1 Apr 2022
<<The Joy and Agony of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Historic Moment.
While all Americans should rejoice in the nomination of Judge Ketanji
Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the first Black woman justice to sit
should she be confirmed, Senate Republicans turned the focus to white
privilege, mockery, and racism. Judge Jackson, with her extraordinary
credentials and a judicial temperament made of steel, faced tirades,
temper tantrums, and theatrical walking off stage. And in the end, the
same way that all Black women rise to higher heights against all odds,
she persevered. As a Black woman lawyer and member of the Supreme Court
bar, I felt a growing anger during the Senate Judiciary Committee
hearings as I watched white Republican senators question Judge Jackson
while clothed in their finest white privilege and adorned with racism,
hypocrisy, and misogyny. On display was Judge Jackson’s worthiness
versus white senators’ entitlement. The Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing’s purpose is supposedly to determine whether the nominee
qualifies for the position. Yet the U.S. Constitution delineates no
quali-fications for a Supreme Court justice. To that point, Justice
James F. Byrnes, who was appointed to the court in 1941, did not
graduate from high school but studied and passed the bar exam. The
Senate confirmed Justice Byrnes’ appointment on the same day of his
nomination. The events of last week show how much times have changed.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson holds impeccable credentials. She graduated
magna cum laude from Harvard University and then from Harvard Law
School, where she served as an editor of the prestigious Harvard Law
Review. She served as Supreme Court law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer,
the justice whose seat she hopes to fill. Her other storied
accomplishments include vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission,
U.S. District Court judge, and U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the
District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Jackson’s hearing began on March 21.
As soon as the questions began, the circus started. Contrary to Senator
Charles Grassley’s (R-Iowa) comments that the hearing would not turn
into a <circus,> it did. On day two, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), in
a tirade and temper tantrum fit more for a toddler, ranted, refused to
allow Judge Jackson to answer questions, exceeded his time limits, broke
Senate rules, and then stormed out of the hearing room. As a Black woman
lawyer, I can’t imagine that I could scream, cry, shout, and walk out of
a hearing without serious consequences. Throughout the hearing, the
smell of sexism permeated the air. Multiple senators posed questions and
then refused Judge Jackson the opportunity to fully answer or rudely
interrupted her before she completed her response. Just about every
woman experiences this conundrum almost daily in conversations with men.
In the context of a Senate confirmation hearing where the sole purpose
is to answer questions, the process was patently counterproductive and
disrespectful toward Judge Jackson.>>
Read more here:
https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/the-joy-and-agony-of-ketanji-brown-jacksons-historic-moment
Al Jazeera
31 Mar 2022
By Haroon Janjua
<<Pakistan: Hindu girl’s killing reignites forced conversion fears
Teenage girl shot dead after she resists abduction for alleged forced
marriage and conversion, prompting fear among the minority community.
Islamabad, Pakistan – A teenage Hindu girl was killed last week in
Pakistan’s southeastern Sindh province after she resisted abduction for
alleged forced marriage and conversion, prompting fear among the
country’s minority community. The family of Pooja Kumari, 18, described
her as a girl full of life, often seen stitching traditional garments at
their home in Rohri town in Sukkur district, some 470km (292 miles)
north of the port city of Karachi, the provincial capital. Kumari’s
uncle Odh, whose first name Al Jazeera is not using due to security
concerns, said she was often harassed by Wahid Bux Lashari, a member of
the powerful Lashari tribe. Lashari, 24, had threatened Kumari with
forced marriage earlier this month. Her family said they approached the
local police who <showed no interest> in helping the family against the
powerful landowning tribe. A week later on March 21, Lashari showed up
again along with two associates and broke into the girl’s house. When
Kumari resisted abduction, Lashari allegedly fired his gun. <They shot
her dead on the spot,> Odh told Al Jazeera. <She [Kumari] preferred
resistance and death instead of marrying the abductor out of her faith.>
Police arrested Lashari and the two associates on the night of March 21
after the incident caused outrage on Pakistani social media. <Mr Lashari
and two others were arrested for their involvement in the murder,> local
police official Bashir Ahmed told Al Jazeera. <The prime suspect has
even confessed to the crime.> Rights groups say Kumari is among nearly
1,000 minority girls forcibly married or converted to Islam – or both –
every year in Muslim-majority Pakistan.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/31/pakistan-hindu-girls-killing-reignites-forced-conversion-fears
Al Jazeera
31 Mar 2022
By Allison Griner
<<The woman confronting the US prison-to-deportation pipeline
Domestic abuse survivor Ny Nourn lived this pipeline. How her fight
against this system became a fight for others.
News of her client’s release sent attorney Melanie Kim scrambling to
find clothes. Her client hadn’t known freedom since 2003. She needed
something to wear when she left detention for the first time in 16
years. So Kim rushed to a discount department store and grabbed what she
hoped would fit: a pair of joggers and a T-shirt.
But when Kim arrived at the Yuba County Jail in Marysville, California,
the problem became clear. Kim had only ever seen her client from across
glass panels, seated during brief, 30-minute visits. The clothes Kim had
picked were far too big for the petite, 4-foot-11.5-inch woman with the
long dark hair who now stood free before her. <In my mind, physically
she was much bigger than she actually was,> Kim recalls. It felt like a
<mismatch>: how someone as small and unassuming as Ny Nourn could have
had such immense effect.
The story of how Nourn, 41, first came to be imprisoned is the story of
her emergence as an advocate. As the co-director of the Asian Prisoner
Support Committee — and an organiser for the domestic violence advocacy
group Survived and Punished — Nourn has rapidly gained a reputation as
one of the most high-profile voices in the fight to end what activists
in the United States call the <prison-to-deportation pipeline>. But
Nourn doesn’t just speak out about that pipeline. She has lived it
herself. And in sharing her story again and again — on panels, in
interviews, even for a TEDx Talk — Nourn often finds herself confronting
the horrors of her past as she works to educate others about the US
criminal justice system.
‘Born into violence’
Born in 1980 in Khao-I-Dang, a Cambodian refugee camp near the border in
Thailand, Nourn remembers sorrow among her earliest memories. At age 18,
her mother had fled Cambodia on foot: the genocide there in the late
1970s killed more than 1.7 million people. She raised Nourn alone in
those early years. Nourn’s father had abandoned them both when Nourn was
only one. <I have very vague, sad memories — the majority of the time,
being hungry, always needing my mother. She was working in the rice
fields,” Nourn says. The world felt so huge at the time. Now, looking
back, she considers herself “born into violence> — the trauma of the
genocide leading to the trauma that followed. At age five, Nourn left
with her mother for the United States, where they settled first in
Florida, then in California. There, in the city of San Diego, her mother
married a fellow refugee from Vietnam, a man who worked as a mechanic.
He too had suffered: he had been a prisoner of war, Nourn says. But very
quickly, the relationship between Nourn’s mother and stepfather turned
violent. They settled in Mira Mesa, a booming suburb dubbed by a local
publication in June 1980 as “San Diego’s most wretched neighborhood”
with its endless rows of identical houses. Although they were surrounded
by military and Filipino families, Nourn remembers they had few
resources to process their experiences as refugees. It was isolating.
<If you don’t deal with trauma, it bleeds into your life, your
relationships, your family, your work. So that’s essentially what
happened to like my parents, right? It bled into their relationships and
into how I was raised,> Nourn says matter-of-factly, her eyes downcast
behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses. Even as Nourn’s family grew —
with the arrival of her younger brother and sister — Nourn’s mother
tried to keep the abuse she endured quiet. Nourn nevertheless caught
glimpses of it. She witnessed her mother being beaten and raped. She
even remembers her mother reaching out to family friends for help, but
they just told her to work it out. And Nourn’s stepfather would brush
her mother aside, saying, <No one’s going to believe you.>
Living in that house felt like <constantly walking on eggshells>. And
she grew to resent what she saw as her mother’s weakness. Nourn even
found herself asking, <Why couldn’t she just leave?> It was the same
victim-blaming question she too would later face when she found herself
trapped in her own abusive relationship.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/31/the-woman-confronting-the-us-prison-to-deportation-pipeline
The Guardian
30 Mar 2022
By Sirin Kale
<<11 years, 10 arrests, at least 62 women: how did Britain’s worst
cyberstalker evade justice for so long?
he conversations always started the same way. A woman would get a
message from a social media user. It would say: <Can I tell you a
secret?> The messenger often, but not always, appeared to be a friendly
young woman, peppering the conversation with words such as <hun> and
signing off with a kiss. But the messenger would also claim to have
information about the woman’s life. The victim’s partner was cheating on
her; a friend was talking behind her back. If the woman blocked the
anonymous messenger, another appeared. If the woman stopped responding,
she would get incessant calls from someone breathing down the phone.
This stalking could go on for years. Sometimes, the stalker spread lies
about the victims to her friends, family and colleagues: that she was
having an affair with her boss, or even her stepdad. The stalker would
hack into the victim’s social media accounts, or create fake accounts in
her name. He would pose as the victim to have sexually explicit
conversations. He would even send stolen intimate photographs of her.
Victims lost friends, family members, relationships and professional
opportunities. One terrified victim slept with a baseball bat in her
hand. Another kept a samurai sword beside her bed. Some were diagnosed
with depression and anxiety and needed medication.
Nobody, except the stalker, knows how many victims there were. The
Guardian has spoken to 10 survivors directly and each knew of another
half a dozen or dozen women who had been targeted. <We’re going to have
hundreds of victims,> says PC Kevin Anderson of Cheshire constabulary.
The person responsible for all this suffering? A 30-year-old unemployed
man from Northwich, Cheshire, called Matthew Hardy. For more than a
decade, Hardy behaved with near impunity. <Every time his name comes up,
I hear other names,> says Zoe Jade Hallam, 31, a model and mechanical
operative from Lincolnshire who survived Hardy’s stalking. One force
alone, Cheshire constabulary, was contacted about Hardy more than 100
times by 62 victims over an 11-year period. During Hardy’s years of
stalking, he was arrested 10 times. But the police and the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) appeared unable to put a stop to his
offending. Until January 2022, that is, when Hardy was sentenced to nine
years in prison for five counts of stalking. The average custodial
sentence for stalking is under 17 months. <It’s the longest sentence
we’ve ever heard of,> says Violet Alvarez of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, an
anti-stalking charity. For survivors, the sentence was the news they had
been waiting for. But why was Britain’s worst‑ever cyberstalker allowed
to evade justice for so long?>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/30/11-years-10-arrests-at-least-62-women-how-did-britains-worst-cyberstalker-evade-justice-for-so-long
Al Jazeera
29 Mar 2022
By Joshua Collins
<<How Francia Marquez aims to break barriers in Colombia
Longtime activist has faced challenges, achieved stunning successes in
world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders.
In 2019, Francia Marquez survived an assassination attempt by men
wielding firearms and grenades – an attack that came on the heels of a
string of death threats against the award-winning Colombian
environmentalist. Now, three years later, Marquez could become the first
Afro-Colombian vice president – a historic development in a country
where politics has traditionally been the domain of wealthy white men.
She was tapped for the position by leftist presidential candidate
Gustavo Petro, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the upcoming May
election. “This is an important moment for the ‘nobodies’ of this
country who have never had a voice,” Marquez told a news conference
after her nomination last week. <This is a moment of racial justice, of
gender justice, ecological justice – and a moment of social justice.> As
supporters pointed to the momentum of the <new left> movement in
Colombia, Marquez received more than 700,000 votes in a presidential
primary earlier this month. Supporters hope her appointment will mean
greater representation at the national level for regions long neglected
by policies crafted in Bogota. She will run for vice president alongside
Petro, a senator and former mayor of Bogota who once took up arms
against the Colombian state as a member of the rebel group M-19. Petro
has maintained a double-digit lead in recent polls over his closest
presidential rival, right-wing politician Federico Gutierrez. Marquez
has focused her campaign on the need for economic investment in conflict
zones, environmentalism, and ensuring implementation of Colombia’s 2016
peace accord. She has vocally opposed the drug wars in Colombia, known
as the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders. <We
are living a historic moment,> Cha Dorina Hernandez, the first Black
congresswoman from San Basilio de Palenque, a historic district known as
the first free town in the Americas, told Al Jazeera. Black communities
<have historically been excluded from decision-making and economic
opportunity in Colombia>, she added. <We have never had real power over
our lives, over our future. She is now in a position to make what we
have been fighting for a reality.>
‘Cemeteries and mass graves’
A lawyer and mother of two, Marquez was born in Yolombo, Cauca, a
conflict-hit region in southwestern Colombia. A longtime activist, she
earned a Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her mobilisation
efforts against illegal gold mining. As part of that campaign, Marquez
led dozens of women in a 10-day, 563km (350 mile) march from La Toma,
Cauca, to Bogota, demanding an end to the mining operations.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/29/how-francia-marquez-aims-to-break-barriers-in-colombia
Al Jazeera
29 Mar 2022
By Saima Mir
<<ESSAY
Features - Women's Rights
A letter to … my ex-mother-in-law, a double agent of patriarchy
You were my mother-in-law for less than three years, and though my short
brush with you scarred me for life, it taught me to honour my feelings.
Dear ex-mother-in-law,
By the time I was 25, I’d left two husbands. The second of those was
your son. My mother’s concerns are steeped in the Pakistani culture she
was raised in. It taught her to ignore her feelings, to minimise
herself, becoming smaller and smaller until she was almost invisible.
For better or worse, my mother’s voice is the voice in my head. But for
a time, back in my 20s, that voice was paired with yours. You were my
mother-in-law for just under three years, and though my short brush with
you scarred me for life, it taught me to honour my feelings. I was just
23 years old when you chose me to marry your son. He was 25. I’d ended a
marriage a year earlier and was living with my parents. It was a time
when nice British Pakistani girls were taught that if we compromised,
and tolerated unkindness, people would grow kinder, and our lives
easier. None of this was true. My first marriage, though it lasted only
three months, weighed heavy on me, and my family was eager for me to
remarry. I wish I’d known how quickly time passes, and what a tiny
fraction of a lifetime, that quarter of a year would prove to be, but I
was trapped in a culture that celebrated virginity and despised divorce.
You were presented as a saviour, the mother of a son who could erase a
mistake. How wrong they were. I remember your visit to my parents’ house
so vividly. You sat on the sofa, looking out across the garden, sipping
tea in a bone china cup, your husband beside you. You were a secondary
school teacher, presenting as a forward-thinking, liberal woman. My mum
was impressed by your words. Despite being a graduate herself, and
teaching English as a second language, she rarely spoke of her
achievements. But you did. You said you were a published author. I later
learned that the GCSE Urdu textbook you’d written had never found a
publisher, and it was self-published and self-circulated. Smoke and
mirrors were your stock and trade right from the start. I was taken in
by your professed allyship. I didn’t want to live in an extended family
system; my last marriage had ended because of my mother-in-law taking a
dislike to me, and my husband not being able to stand up for me. Seeing
my reticence, your son told me things would be different if I agreed to
the marriage, that if you and I ever disagreed, he would stand with me.
I believed him. <He was raised by a feminist,> I thought. You often
talked about women’s rights to education, to work, to live how they
choose. You were vocal at the mosque, with friends and family, in a way
that Pakistani women were reluctant to be publicly, fearing a backlash.
You told me you’d gone on hunger strike to convince your parents to let
you go to university. That you fought racism in schools, walked around
with your resignation letter in your pocket, and were unafraid to call
things out. But days after the wedding, I learned that the values you
espoused did not apply to me. You had set up a hierarchy with yourself
at the top, using the tools of patriarchy to maintain your own position.
You made it clear what you expected of me. By the end of the two years,
I was waiting on you, your husband, and your son hand and foot, cooking
and serving all the meals, starching and ironing everyone’s clothes,
cleaning the house, driving you places, and ending each day by bringing
you a biscuit with your cup of tea, as you sat on the sofa watching
television with your husband. Your three daughters would visit often,
bringing with them their husbands and five children. I ran around,
making dinners, serving them, and clearing dishes, like a server in a
restaurant, while you held court at the dining table. My memories of
living in your house are fading fast, but they still leave me gasping
for breath. My body has kept score, of the stress, anxiety, and fear,
that living with you and your family inflicted. And when I sit down
after a long day of work, household chores, and running after my
children, I think of all the time you took from me, all the work I did,
and how grateful I would be if someone did that for me. But you weren’t
grateful. You were the mother of a son, and I was his wife, to your
mind, my unpaid labour was your God-given right. In an attempt to escape
the drudgery, I started temping as an accounts assistant for a shipping
company. It was a short reprieve. On the train journey home, dread would
come over me, tightening my chest, at the thought of what awaited me.
Life with you was on a knife-edge, I never knew what would upset you, or
when you’d complain to your son, who would blame me and fly into a rage
over the smallest thing. Like the time you saw a dead fly on the
carpeted stairs. “What good is her salary to me?” you had shouted. You
were angry, and I wonder if it was your loss of control over me now that
I was working outside the home, and had a taste of freedom, that really
riled you. You didn’t believe in equality for all women, just for
yourself. It’s hard to explain how emotional abuse works. Each thing
sounds trivial on its own, but the drip-drip of complaints,
manipulation, annoyance, and anger wears you down, and you find yourself
becoming compliant in exchange for a peaceful life. But there was no
peaceful life because your demands just grew.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/29/a-letter-to-my-ex-mother-in-law
The Guardian/
The Observer = 27 Mar 27 2022
Activism
Interview
Activist Elaine Brown: ‘You must be willing to die for what you believe
in’
By Michael Segalov
<<Elaine Brown reveals how in 1974 she came to be the first and only
woman to lead the Black Panther Party – and talks about revolution,
resistance and activism today.
laine Brown doesn’t waste time on small talk. Her stint as the first and
only female leader of the Black Panther Party may be long in the past,
but she remains a present-day revolutionary. It’s why, when she logs
into Zoom to discuss her memoir, A Taste of Power – first published in
the United States in the 1990s, only now reaching the United Kingdom –
she doesn’t want to expend precious minutes on niceties or beating
around the bush. <The situation for Black people in America is largely
the same as it was when the Black Panther Party was formed,> Brown
explains, from her home in Oakland, California. <We have the highest
incarceration and homeless rate; the lowest education and homeownership
levels.> She paraphrases Dr Martin Luther King, turning to look at the
portraits of her fellow Panthers hanging from the walls of her
apartment: Black people in America have double of what is bad, and half
of what is good.
The reason Elaine Brown doesn’t waste time is simple: there’s still far
too much to be done. Having spent a lifetime fighting for the
emancipation of Black people, now 79, she has no intention of slowing
down. <I can’t un-know what I know,> she says, of what has kept her
motivated, her outlook unflinching. <I can’t stop seeing police killing
Black people and our suffering.> She’s also not convinced that others
would take her place should she wind down. While younger generations
look to the global Black Lives Matter movement as a stride forward in
anti-racist action, Brown is, to put it mildly, unimpressed. <I find it
all embarrassing,> Brown says. <I’m bored by most people who call
themselves ‘activists’. So you had a little parade, and you’ve started a
hashtag in the ether world? You painted a pavement, went home for a
vegan meal, and called it a day?> Brown believes these movements are
destined to flounder, devoid of analysis, concrete plans or objectives;
that today’s young radicals have lost their way. <It’s frustrating,> she
says, <but doesn’t distract me.> Brown keeps her eyes on the prize.
<When we joined the Black Panther Party, we surrendered our lives to the
revolution. Today, people won’t make that sacrifice. That’s why I try to
keep the revolutionary spirit of our struggle alive.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/27/activist-elaine-brown-you-must-be-willing-to-die-for-what-you-believe-in
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