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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
15 mar 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Fadzayi Mahere
<<Women need to see themselves in politics. It’s the only way change
will come to Zimbabwe. As a young woman in politics I’ve experienced
prejudice – audiences ask about my marital status instead of my policies.
But we must continue to step up for the next generation. t is fair to
say there has been reasonable progress for women in political leadership
and decision-making in the past three decades. Yet, 27 years after the
Beijing declaration at the world conference on women, adopted by 189
countries and seen as the key moment for radical change in gender
equality, too much remains the same. Since 2015, women in almost every
country have had the right to vote, at least in theory. The world has
seen impressive female leaders including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Mia
Mottley, Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern. A few countries, such as
Finland, even have cabinets dominated by women. These achievements have
in large part happened because of measures invoked since the Beijing
conference. However, there has been very slow progress in other areas.
In Zimbabwe, women remain under-represented in party politics, in
parliament and in cabinet. Deep-seated patriarchal and political
violence are sustained by legacies of masculinised nationalist politics
that helped liberate Zimbabwe from equally patriarchal colonial rule.
Masculinised nationalism finds powerful expression through Zanu-PF, the
ruling party for more than four decades. Women make up less than 50% of
parliamentarians, yet gender parity is a constitutional requirement.
Since independence in 1980, there has not been a female president. The
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission only registered five female voters in one
of the country’s biggest provinces, Mashonaland Central last year. Women
are excluded from political processes, to the detriment of society.
The mere fact of being a woman does not give one the right to lead. Both
men and women must be held to the same standards of non-patriarchal
values, integrity, accountability, transparency; these are all key
components of ethical leadership, regardless of gender. We should focus
on choosing leaders who connect with people, drive positive social
change, focus on uplifting their communities. In my journey as a
relatively young woman in politics, I have observed and experienced
prejudices and stereotypes. Sometimes, when I open my mouth to speak,
instead of engaging with the content, my audience will ask: <But why
aren’t you married?> Instead of taking issue with the government and
fighting the system, I’m told I should get married and have children.
Some sexualise my appearance and, rather than focus on the substance of
a press conference, comment on my face or hair. Then there is
cyberbullying, trolling and fake news. Opponents mount disinformation
campaigns that are easily sexualised in the political context. I deal
with it by choosing not to be a victim. I am not the sort of politician
who is going to sing every day about how everything is so unfair. I
focus on what I can control: my competence and my delivery. It takes
time to gain public trust. But once people see you as a leader of
integrity – that you are transparent, accountable and prepared to accept
criticism with a measure of humility – they start to see beyond gender.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/15/fadzayi-mahere-women-in-politics-zimbabwe
The Guardian
15 mar 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Jill Filipovic in Porto-Novo
<<Women's rights and gender equality
Benin’s first female vice-president on women’s bodies, Amazon warriors
and being called a feminist. For Mariam Chabi Talata, legalising
abortion and educating girls are essential first steps in giving women
control of their future. Years ago, Mariam Chabi Talata says, she knew a
girl who got in some trouble. The girl thought she could not tell her
parents, and she could not go to hospital, because the solution to her
problem was then a crime. So the girl sought help from an <angel-maker>.
The backstreet abortionist nearly made an angel of the girl, who ended
up in hospital, sick with complications from the procedure. Because what
she had done was illegal, the girl, who was young and scared, said her
mother had given her some herbal tea. And there they were: the girl, who
could have died, and her mother facing a potential prison sentence.
Talata, who heard about it through community chatter and
isn’t-that-a-shame gossip, was thinking about that girl years later when,
as vice-president of Benin, her country legalised abortion. “It’s about
saving lives,” she says. “This is a public health issue. We can’t ignore
it. Abortion was there. It is a reality. How do we keep it from becoming
a real public health issue? That’s what the question is about. <Some say
that abortion is a crime, but when the law does not allow abortion, it
is a double crime, sometimes even a triple crime,> she says.<It’s about
saving lives,> she says. <This is a public health issue. We can’t ignore
it. Abortion was there. It is a reality. How do we keep it from becoming
a real public health issue? That’s what the question is about. Some say
that abortion is a crime, but when the law does not allow abortion, it
is a double crime, sometimes even a triple crime,” she says. Talata, 58,
is Benin’s first female vice-president. The former teacher and school
inspector is one of a small but growing number of women reaching higher
office across sub-Saharan Africa – and often bringing more feminist
policies with them. She was appointed in 2021 when Patrice Talon, a
wealthy cotton magnate, was re-elected for a second term as president.
But her country has a rich history of empowered legendary women, she
says, pointing to Benin’s origins as the kingdom of Dahomey, with its
all-female regiment of Amazons – <an army essentially made up of women
who went to fight>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/15/mariam-chabi-talata-benin-first-female-vice-president-on-abortion-rights
The Guardian
14 Mar 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Nyasha Chingono in Chitungwiza
<<‘I don’t know how I’m still going’: what’s next for the woman who fed
thousands in Zimbabwe’s lockdown?
Samantha Murozoki started cooking huge batches of food for hungry
neighbours when Covid struck. Now she wants to help them look after
themselves. Immigration lawyer Samantha Murozoki did not plan to be
still cooking for her neighbourhood two years after she first gave out
leftover sadza porridge to hungry children in her street. Murozoki made
headlines at the start of the Covid pandemic when the number of people
queueing outside her small home kitchen in Chitungwiza, a town on the
outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, quickly reached the thousands.
Now, even though the number of people struggling to find food each day
has eased in line with Zimbabwe’s lockdown measures, which have allowed
people to return to work, Murozoki, 34, continues to feed nearly 800
people daily. <I feel like I cannot just start something like this and
close the doors,> she says. <I do not know how I am still going on after
so many days.> After an initial rush of small donations from
well-wishers, providing a plate of sadza (Zimbabwe’s porridge-like
staple made from boiled maize flour, also known as mealie meal) and
beans to everyone in need every day has not been easy, and Murozoki has
used her own and her mother’s money to feed people. <People have donated
and have done their part, now they wait on us to do something bigger,>
she says.
<Last month, we had two consecutive days when we did not serve because
we didn’t have mealie meal. We also have days where we have to cut the
number of people we serve based on what we have.
Right now the only help that I get is from regular citizens from
Zimbabwe and in other countries. It might not be on a regular basis but
whenever they can, they bring something through. We have a few companies
that come and donate food. When we do not have anything to give, my mum
and I make the financial input to make sure there is something. Whenever
we do not have it completely, we close our doors and do not serve.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/14/samantha-murozoki-whats-next-for-the-woman-who-fed-thousands-in-zimbabwe-lockdown
Al Jazeera
13 Mar 2022
By Sam Mednick
<<The woman protecting South Sudan’s parks from war and poaching
Bibiana Martin was 12 years old when she joined the forest rangers.
Twenty years later, she is still protecting the parks and their animals
and inspiring other women.
Bangangai, South Sudan – Bibiana Martin can hardly remember a time when
she didn’t live or work in the bush. The 32-year-old has been protecting
South Sudan’s forests since she begged her grandfather to join the
wildlife rangers at age 12, because her family could not afford to send
her to school. <The officers said, ‘You’re too young; you can’t be a
ranger’, but I refused to listen. I said if I’m not going to school I
don’t want to just sit in the house,> says Martin, waving her hands
animatedly as she speaks, laughing much of the way through the
conversation. She sips her morning coffee next to a small fire at the
ranger outpost on the edge of the Bangangai game reserve in southwest
South Sudan, near the border with the Central African Republic. The post
is non-descript, basic and remote. Several thatched huts line the area,
each with a small garden adjacent to it where rangers grow vegetables. A
few wooden benches and some plastic chairs are situated around the <kitchen>
– really a small fire with some pots, where rangers take turns cooking
meals of rice and beans.
Martin is open and at times nostalgic as she recounts her early years
with the rangers. As one of just three female wildlife officers – out of
25 – at this outpost, she fights to protect South Sudan’s parks and
animals in the wake of prolonged conflict, amid a lack of resources and
an increasing risk of poaching and forest degradation.
....
Slinging her gun around her shoulder for the morning patrol, Martin
finishes her coffee, grabs some water and follows the rangers into the
park. Playful in the forest, she appears more like she’s bobbing than
walking as she checks the ground and trees for traces of animals. Every
time the rangers see footprints, they stop and record the GPS location
of where it was. The patrols can take a few hours if the rangers are
just going out for the day, but usually, they last between five to eight
days with the team sleeping in tents in the forest.
Everything they do is on foot with little access to vehicles or
motorbikes. In addition to tracking animals, they monitor the camera
traps, which record the animals – and warn poachers that they will be
caught on camera – and make sure signs are up, deterring people from
killing them. As part of her job, Martin also raises awareness with the
surrounding community, speaking to them about the importance of
preserving parks and not killing animals. She also catches poachers – or
tries to. Despite rangers being forced to stop patrolling during the
civil war years – with Martin remaining at the headquarters in Tambura
during that time – across the years she has apprehended about 12 people
for poaching, she says, even though many are let off with just a warning.
‘If I don’t work for it now, no one else will’>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/13/the-woman-protecting-south-sudans-parks-from-war-and-poaching
The Guardian
12 Mar 2022
<<The Week in Patriarchy
Gigi Hadid
Nothing makes liberals abandon their values, or their courage, like
mentioning Palestine.
By Arwa Mahdawi
Like Gigi Hadid, my dad is a Palestinian refugee, and I’ve been harassed
for suggesting Palestinians deserve human rights. Progressive, except
for Palestine
What starts with “P” ends with “E” and is too terrifying a word for many
people to so much as mention? “Palestine”, of course! Simply uttering
the P-word in a vaguely sympathetic way can be enough to elicit bad
faith accusations of antisemitism. The topic has become so loaded that
some people seemingly prefer to pretend Palestine and Palestinians don’t
exist and just ignore the issue altogether. Nothing makes liberals
abandon their progressive values, or their courage, like someone
mentioning Palestine. Vogue, I’m looking at you here. The magazine
recently edited a reference to Palestine out of an Instagram post on its
official social media page that was dedicated to supermodel Gigi Hadid’s
pledge to donate her all her Fashion Month earnings to relief efforts in
Ukraine and Palestine. Last Sunday Gigi, who is half Palestinian,
announced that she was giving her earnings to <to aid those suffering
from the war in Ukraine, as well as continuing to support those
experiencing the same in Palestine. Our eyes and hearts must be open to
all human injustice>. Vogue initially included the reference to
Palestine in the post but removed it after it was accused by a number of
pro-Israel voices, in very bad faith, of furthering antisemitism. After
an outcry from people who pointed out that it is not antisemitic to
support Palestinians, Vogue then amended the post a third time to put
the reference back in. This isn’t the first time that a Hadid has had
their comments about Palestine erased on Instagram, by the way. Last
year Bella Hadid posted a photo on Instagram of her dad’s US passport
which listed his birthplace as Palestine. The social network quickly
removed it. Why? According to Instagram the post violated <community
guidelines on harassment or bullying> as well as regulations on <hate
speech>. After Bella spoke out Instagram offered a few other
explanations for it being removed, and then said <Whoops, it was a
mistake!> Like the Hadid sisters, my dad is a Palestinian refugee. Like
the Hadid sisters, I’ve also found myself harassed and vilified for
daring to suggest that Palestinians deserve human rights.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/12/gigi-hadid-palestine-vogue-liberals-ukraine
Al Jazeera
9 Mar 2022
By Amanda Ong
<<LONG READ
Features|Women's Rights
‘We deserve a fresh start’: The UK’s female victims of slavery
How a system that is supposed to support survivors of sex trafficking
leaves them feeling triggered and vulnerable. Emily’s* experience of
child exploitation began when she was 11 and a middle-aged neighbour
started cajoling her into smuggling packs of drugs around towns in
northern England and Wales. Every drug run was a carefully orchestrated
act of deception. Emily would be driven from house to house in the
neighbour’s car. To anyone who saw them, they looked like a young girl
out with her father. Police officers on patrol were unlikely to suspect
that tucked under her blouse were plastic bags filled with cocaine,
heroin and weed. To Emily, who lived on an estate on the derelict
fringes of a Welsh seaside town, where drug trafficking was rife and
girls as young as eight were roped in to deliver drugs in their toy
prams, it felt exhilarating – like going on an adventure with an adult
conspirator. Violence was common. On one of her drug runs, Emily
witnessed one man attack another with an axe. The neighbour handled all
the cash, but would give her a bit of money to buy cigarettes or snacks.
These small gifts felt like rewards. As she grew older and began
experimenting with drugs herself, he demanded sexual favours in exchange
for a steady supply of pills. Bullied at school, Emily began to see her
neighbour as her only friend. <When I was with him, I felt important,
like I was really doing something,> she says over the phone. By 14,
Emily was constantly playing truant, dealing drugs herself, and had been
expelled from school once for fighting. <I just didn’t care about
anything anymore,> she recalls ruefully. That was the year she was
gang-raped by three men. When they had finished raping her, she says
they dropped her off by the side of a road like she was <a piece of
rubbish>. <There were no thoughts in my head. I was just bloodied,
battered, and in indescribable pain,> Emily explains. From then, she
careened into substance abuse and depression. <I felt like there was
nothing for me, and even though I was in drug and alcohol support, I’d
never follow through. It felt like I shouldn’t bother,> she remembers.
She never told her parents about the drug trafficking or the sexual
assault, and they assumed that she was just going through an especially
stormy phase of teenage rebellion. <My mum and dad are absolutely normal,
they don’t drink, smoke or take drugs,> she says. <There’s a naivete
about them, they’re completely strait-laced and didn’t know what was
going on. But my mum did try. She knew how important education was, and
she kept trying to make me go back to school.> But Emily’s drug
addiction made her vulnerable to those who didn’t have her best
interests at heart. Some of the girls at her school knew about her
desperate need for money to buy drugs, so would introduce her to
numerous older men who would sexually exploit her in exchange for money.
These men would also traffic her to others. Emily estimates that over
the course of her teenage years, she was raped approximately 1,560 times,
in run-down rooms, at the back of pubs, and wherever the men lived. She
was never physically held captive, but was psychologically enslaved by
her abusers, who profited off her vulnerability and kept her under
control.
...
Today, she runs a pseudonymous account on Twitter as an anti-trafficking
advocate. Her posts raise awareness of organisations and individuals
working in the sector, and express solidarity with other victims and
survivors.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/9/we-deserve-a-fresh-start-the-uks-female-victims-of-slavery
Al Jazeera
8 Mar 2022
By Suparna Sharma
<<LONG READ
Features|Entertainment
‘Misogyny is everywhere’: Meenu Gaur on making feminist noir
The Indian-British director of Qatil Haseena Ke Naam on what it looks
like when privilege is handed to women in film and filming across the
Pakistan-India divide. We have been speaking for almost two hours when
Meenu Gaur fumbles to find the right words for the first time. I have
asked the 44-year-old Indian-British director if she has ever faced
misogyny on her film sets. <It’s huge, like huge, you know… Talking
about this topic is like, what to say? … It’s like talking about air.
It’s difficult to say it’s here or it’s here … It’s everywhere,> she
says, simultaneously shaking her head and jabbing the air above it with
cupped hands to convey its all-pervasive presence. But Gaur, who has
directed films and taught filmmaking in India, Pakistan and Britain for
two decades, says she is now in a place where she no longer feels the
need to engage with misogyny on her sets. <I discard it, I don’t play …
Because I know what I’m doing,> she explains with a smile.
Gaur recently finished directing a six-part <feminist noir series>,
Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam (loosely translated as An Ode to Murderous
Beauties). The anthology about seven femmes fatales in bloody pursuit of
their desires, set in Pakistan and commissioned by Indian streaming
platform ZEE5 Global, was released in December last year to positive
reviews. <I’m very happy,> Gaur says of her solo directorial debut. <It’s
kind of made me feel quite brave in some ways.> Gaur has been busy
promoting it – so busy that it has taken us weeks to settle on a date
for our Zoom call. When it finally happens, in the middle of a weekday
in January, Gaur, who is wearing a grey shawl draped over a yellow
t-shirt, begins by saying: <Talking about one’s life is very boring … If
it gets awfully boring, tell me. I won’t be offended.>
The conversation that follows is anything but boring.
Like most of Gaur’s previous work, Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam is an
India-Pakistan collaboration that seamlessly brings together her
passions and politics. It stars some of Pakistan’s best-known actresses,
its crew is a mix of talent from India and Pakistan, it is feminist and
very <desi> – a phrase that defines, and culturally joins, Indians,
Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. ZEE5 does not share viewership figures but
says the series was amongst its top 10 shows in December. Gaur says the
feedback has been <positive> >>.
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/8/misogyny-is-everywhere-meenu-gaur-on-making-feminist-noir
Al Jazeera
8 Mar 2022
<<LONG READ
Features|Kurds
By Julie Bindel
‘As if she had never existed’: The graveyards for murdered women
In the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, female victims of ‘honour
killings’ lie buried in unmarked graves, denied even their names in
death, but Kurdish feminists are fighting back.
Naza* is visiting her daughter’s grave in an unmarked section of a
cemetery in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. She
goes there in secret – the girl’s death has been shrouded in a veil of
family shame, so much so that her grave is unmarked. The reason? <My
beautiful girl was killed by her cousin when she refused to marry him,>
Naza says. “Nothing happened to him. The police took his word that he
was innocent. Then, because the elders said she had brought disgrace,
they put her in a grave with no name, no headstone, as if she had never
existed.” Naza is accompanied by her 15-year-old son, who must also come
here in secret. <I see other mothers, and once even a father, always
weeping and looking heartbroken,” Naza tells me. “Having to sneak around
in the middle of the night to visit my daughter’s grave turns my pain
into constant agony.> Because of the secrecy with which they must visit
their murdered loved ones’ graves and the potential backlash from family
and community members, most of the women I spoke to preferred not to
give their names. Another woman – whose sister had been murdered – I met
at the graveyard said she had been told by a male community leader that
the deceased was <lucky> to have anywhere to <lay her bones after what
she had done [run away from a forced marriage]>. He said: <She should be
ground into the earth, like powder.> Another visitor to the graveyard
described feeling as if the place was holding <the living dead – souls
crying out in pain>.
There are cemeteries like this in several parts of the Kurdish region of
northern Iraq, full of the unmarked graves of women and girls who have
been murdered by male relatives in the name of <honour>.
Since the 1991 uprising of the Kurdish region, which spans a number of
different internationally-recognised countries, including Turkey, Syria,
Iran and Iraq, more than 20,000 Kurdish women have been killed in
so-called <honour crimes>. There are moves to address the existence of
these graves. Through the efforts of grassroots women’s rights
organisations in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, such as the Sofia
Society, attention is starting to focus on the issue of <honour crimes>.Qubad
Talabani, the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG), is one person in a position of power who has taken notice. On the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in
November last year, Talabani visited the cemetery I saw – a bleak, bare
space with no flowers, photographs or epitaphs. I spoke to him about it.
<This is a form of violence that continues to torment these women even
after their deaths,> he explained. <By being buried with no respect or
recognition, they did not afford this poor victim respect, even in death.
That aspect of this crime really hurt me and made me want to act. As an
official, as a Kurd and as a man, I feel ashamed that such crimes can be
carried out by my countrymen against women. The fact that these victims
lie in unmarked graves just adds insult to injury. There is never honour
in the murder of women, only shame. Shame on the perpetrator and shame
on the society that tolerates such acts.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/3/8/as-if-she-had-never-existed-the-graveyards-for-murdered-women
Al Jazeera
8 Mar 2022
By Natalie Alcoba
<<A family’s unrelenting fight to end Argentina’s femicide crisis
Lucia Perez’s 2016 killing sent shockwaves across Argentina. Her family
is still pushing for justice.
Mar del Plata, Argentina – Recently, Marta Montero dreamed of her
teenage daughter, Lucia. It happens from time to time. She felt the soft
fabric of the dress that Lucia was wearing, and she felt peace when she
woke up to a world in which Lucia is no longer there.
Lucia’s life was snuffed out five and a half years ago in one of the
most emblematic cases of femicide in Argentina — not just for the
violence that was exacted on the 16-year-old, but for the way in which a
court judged her. “The first year is just terrible. The first birthday.
The first Christmas,” said Montero, sitting at the kitchen table of the
modest house where she lives with her family in the coastal city of Mar
del Plata, about 400km (248 miles) from the capital Buenos Aires. <That
absence makes your skin hurt. Your soul hurts. You feel it in your body.
Your body hurts. It is just terrible. I remember coming home from work
on the bus, and seeing Lucia. And getting off the bus crying and
thinking, ‘I must be going crazy.'>
It has been a devastating and maddening time for Lucia’s family and
their allies since the teenage girl’s lifeless body was dropped off at a
health clinic in her hometown in October 2016 by two men, Matias Farias,
23, and Juan Pablo Offidani, 41. They were accused of drugging, raping
and killing her – and Farias also faced a charge of femicide – but
acquitted by a trio of judges who found them only guilty of
administering drugs to a minor. The judges also absolved a third man who
is now deceased of helping them cover up the crime.
The ruling was quashed in 2020 by a higher court, and the family is
still awaiting a new trial date to be set. They also are waiting for a
hearing that could strip the original trial judges of their posts for
relying on gender stereotypes and prejudices in their ruling. That would
be a milestone in the battle waged by women’s rights activists to
dismantle the patriarchal underpinnings of Argentine society, including
in the judiciary. <The movement of women has not only conquered the
streets, but we are also conquering these spaces and we will use all
tools that are available to us,> Maite Guerrero, a lawyer with the
Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Genero, told Al Jazeera. <This case
could set an important precedent for us.>
Seminal case
In Argentina, one woman is killed roughly every 30 hours, a statistic
that has not shifted much since a new wave of the feminist movement
exploded onto the streets in 2015 under the banner Ni Una Menos — Not
One Less.
Lucia’s death prompted the first women’s strike, which saw hundreds of
thousands of people demonstrate in the streets in 2016 demanding more
action from legislators. They were driven there at least in part by the
horrific revelations by a prosecutor, who told the press in the days
after the crime that the teenager had been impaled during the brutal
attack, and that her body was cleaned.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/8/a-familys-unrelenting-fight-to-end-argentinas-femicide-crisis
Al Jazeera
7 Feb 2022
By Sanam Maher
<<LONG READ
Features|Women's Rights
Murdered women: Adiba Parveen, the quietest girl in the valley
When the recently married resident of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan
province disappeared, her family feared the worst. In Shimshal, they
still talk about the night the quietest girl in the valley disappeared.
On June 6, 2021, 21-year-old Adiba Parveen visited her mother’s house
for a cup of tea. She could not stay long, she told her mother, as her
husband was leaving the next morning to return to his post in the army
and she had to pack his things. Her sister-in-law was pregnant at the
time and even though Adiba was in a rush, she lingered to wash the
dishes to make sure her bhabhi would not have to. She had always had a
naram aadat, a gentle disposition, like that. Adiba’s older sister
Ghazala chatted with her before she left. <How are you?> she asked. <How
is everything at home?> <It’s OK,> Adiba said. Even though she said this
with a small smile, Adiba’s mother felt an uneasiness creep into her
heart. She stood in the doorway of her home and watched Adiba walk down
the road. She remained there until the girl faded from view in the
evening light. The next morning, Ghazala received a text message from
Adiba’s husband Nadeem. He had messaged her in the past to ask how Adiba
was doing. <I have heard she is looking quite weak,> he wrote one time,
<and she is not taking care of herself.> On that day, he had one
question: <Where is Adiba?> >>
Please do read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/7/murdered-women-adiba-parveen-the-quietest-girl-in-the-valley
The Guardian
6 Feb 2022
By Claire Armitstead
<<Interview
One woman’s war story: Hive, the real-life Sundance hit set on Kosovo’s
feminist frontline.
Last year’s festival saw a hat-trick of awards for a feature telling the
true story of Fahrije Hoti, a Kosovan war widow who rebelled against her
village patriarchy. Director Blerta Basholli and Hoti talk about
bringing it to the screen. On 25 March 1999, everything changed for the
small Kosovan village of Krushë e Madhe when Serbian troops moved in and
forced the villagers to move out. They were searched for gold and
jewellery and herded towards the mosque, where the men were separated
from the women. Nearly 250 men and boys were killed or disappeared in
what was to become one of the worst massacres of the Kosovo war. Fahrije
Hoti’s husband was among 64 whose bodies were never found. Hoti, a
handsome and composed woman with neatly cropped grey hair, recalls the
terrible days that followed with a chilling clarity, as if every detail
of the 15-month war between Kosovo and Serbia-Montenegro were seared
into her memory. <They told us they had dug a mass grave and were going
to execute us all and throw us into it. Everyone was crying and yelling,>
she tells me on Zoom from her home, a short distance from where it all
happened. In the confusion, she became separated from her three-year-old
daughter and thought her three-month-old son was dead, after he was
seized from her arms and hurled on to a concrete floor. But somehow, all
three of them survived, along with her father-in-law, who was too old
and frail to be taken off with the younger men. Twelve members of her
husband’s family died in the massacre, she says, and she was responsible
for identifying the remains of her brother-in-law and his 16-year-old
son. Now a feature film, Hive, has been made about the period after she
returned to her village, and was trying to rebuild her life. The debut
feature of Kosovan director Blerta Basholli, Hive was one of the sleeper
hits of last year’s Sundance festival, becoming the first film to win
all three main awards in the world cinema dramatic competition – the
grand jury prize, the audience award, and the directing award.
<Fahrije’s story had a great impact on me,> says Basholli. <Being a
woman, a mother and having gone through war myself I felt it very
strongly and I thought it would speak to other people too, at a time
when women all around the world are facing human rights issues in one
way or another.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/06/hive-film-kosovo-fahrije-hote-blerta-basholli-interview
The Guardian
6 Feb 2022
By Alexandra Topping
<<Women in the boardroom
Companies with female leaders outperform those dominated by men, data
shows.
Women should play a central role in the UK’s post-pandemic economic
recovery, with evidence revealing companies with more female leaders
outperform those dominated by men, according to House of Commons
research. Accusing the government of ignoring women’s needs during the
coronavirus pandemic and side-lining them in plans for recovery, the
shadow secretary for women and equalities, Anneliese Dodds, said the
data showed women held the key to a stronger economy, but they were
being held back by a lack of investment and the risk of <childcare
deserts> in parts of the country. <When you’ve got more engagement from
women, when women are in the driving seat to the extent they should be,
it makes for far more successful businesses,> she said. <Our commitment
is to consider women’s concerns and other equality issues from the
start. The problem with the current government is they’re not even
tacking women’s concerns on at the end, they’re not considering them at
all.> She warned that the UK was facing a <childcare emergency> with
early years settings struggling to recruit staff and the Early Years
Alliance reporting that some areas of England have seen a 25% decline in
the number of places in the past six years.
<The childcare sector is facing a short-term emergency, seeing childcare
deserts in different parts of the country, with providers going bust and
not being able to continue operating – that has an awful impact on
working women,> said Dodds. <Childcare providers are part of our
economic infrastructure, we have to find a more sustainable way
forward.> To mark International Women’s Day, which is on Tuesday, Labour
have collated data from the House of Commons library. It cited McKinsey
research that shows companies in the top quartile for gender diversity
on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average
profitability than companies in the bottom, while companies with more
than 30% female executives were more likely to outperform companies that
don’t, according to research from academics from the Universities of
Glasgow and Leicester.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/06/companies-with-female-leaders-outperform-those-dominated-by-men-data-shows
The Guardian
5 Feb 2022
By Tobi Thomas
<<Teenager due in court over shooting of girl, 15, at Liverpool bus
stop. Rio Jones, 18, charged with attempted murder as victim’s condition
remains stable. An 18-year-old man has been charged with attempted
murder after the shooting of a 15-year-old girl at a bus stop. Rio
Jones, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, possession
of a firearm with intent to endanger life, and possession of a
controlled drug, Merseyside police said.
He was due to appear in court on Saturday.
The girl had finished school and was believed to have been standing at a
bus stop on Upper Warwick Street in Liverpool’s Toxteth area when the
incident happened shortly after 5pm on Tuesday.
She was said to be in a stable condition in hospital, and police said it
was an <absolute miracle and a credit to the NHS> that she survived. In
a press conference at Merseyside police headquarters on Wednesday,
officers said that they believed more than one offender was involved and
that about four electric bikes may have been in use at the time. Det Ch
Supt Mark Kameen said: <It is still, and I have to reassure everyone,
very early days in this investigation, however we are working incredibly
hard, late into the night and from the early hours of the morning to
ensure that this investigation has the absolute traction that it
definitely requires.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/05/teenager-due-in-court-over-shooting-of-girl-15-at-liverpool-bus-stop
Al Jazeera
<<‘Stateless’: The politician disowned by South Sudan and Uganda
The Juba-born politician and activist is fighting for her position in
parliament, her citizenship and her life.
By Zeinab Mohammed Salih
4 Mar 2022
On December 22, 2021, Animu Athiei was leaving a café at the airport
road of the South Sudanese capital Juba when members of the country’s
secret police grabbed and put her into their van. That afternoon was the
beginning of two months in detention for the 38-year-old youth activist
and politician. The plainclothes officers who took her merely told her
while she was briefly detained by them, that she was under investigation
but gave no more details. They handed her over to the immigration police
who kept her in custody, accusing her of having obtained a fake passport
– a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison upon conviction. <It
was the most frightening experience I have ever gone through,> Athiei
told Al Jazeera. <I was arrested without being told why, continually
detained without contact to my family and lawyer. The fact that it was
done in broad daylight without a flinch from bystanders scared me even
more.>
She was also transferred from one prison to another without being
registered as a prisoner, she said. On February 17, Athiei was released
on bail after repeated cries about her deteriorating health by her
lawyer Philip Anyang and human rights organisations. Since then, she has
been at the Juba Teaching Hospital, undergoing treatment for a severe
lower abdominal pain she first felt on January 31. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/4/stateless-the-politician-rejected-by-south-sudan-and-uganda
The Guardian
3 Mar 2022
By Anna More
<<‘My childhood was stolen. Why is my adulthood being taken, too?’ The
rape survivors waiting 1,000 days for prosecution.
For Nina, the prospect of walking into a police station and reporting
her stepfather for child sexual abuse was, she says, her <worst
nightmare ... It was something I’d dreaded my whole life,> she says. She
had been raped by her stepfather for years when she was a child – and he
had promised all sorts of consequences if she ever told anyone. Her
mother, he told her, would kill herself. He implied that he might, too –
but one thing he always assured her was that he would never go to jail.
When she was in her late teens, Nina finally told her mum, who was
devastated, but believed her. It took years, however, before she felt
ready to press charges. <One of the things that stopped me from telling
anyone that it was happening at the time was the terror of standing in a
courtroom putting all that shame on show – and that felt even worse the
older I got. It took a good few years before I realised that the right
thing to do was to prosecute. It had got to the point where ‘little
Nina’ would have wanted it to happen; I felt like I was doing it for my
childhood self and for all the other little Ninas out there who were
still suffering. I had a duty beyond any pain it would cause me – but I
had no clue of the price I’d be paying.> Nina made the report in 2016.
She subsequently gave a detailed video interview with the police. <It
felt good to get it done,” she says. Rather than “overwhelm> her with
continual contact, the police suggested they only get in touch when
there was progress on the case. <I thought that sounded all right, but
then you wait six months, eight months, 10 months, without hearing
anything,> says Nina. <What’s going on? You start to wonder: is it OK?
Is anything happening? Are they investigating?>
At times, it felt almost as if the move that had seemed so momentous,
that had taken all of Nina’s courage, had made no mark or had never
happened. <I had no paperwork, not a single letter, nothing at all to
show it was on record or in the system other than a crime number that
was dictated to me down the phone at some point,. she says. <The thing
that horrifies me is that at the start of each new year, I think, ‘OK,
maybe this year, it’ll all be over, something will happen and I can
finally put it behind me and get on with my life’ – but it never is. It
has been five years now with the police and CPS [Crown Prosecution
Service] ping-ponging the case between each other. My stepfather is
still living his life without consequences and we haven’t even got to a
charging decision. It casts a shadow over everything I plan, any choice
I make, this feeling that something could happen any time so I have to
keep it all top of my mind when all my instincts are telling me not to.
My testimony is relying on the fact that I’m remembering something that
I’m desperately trying to forget.>
Figures for England and Wales have shown the typical delay between an
offence of rape and a resulting criminal case rose to 1,000 days in
2021. According to the Criminal Bar Association, the backlog of trials
for sexual offences has risen by 125% in the past three years. This, of
course, shows only the tip of the iceberg, since a fraction of reported
sex offences will get to trial – 2.9% resulted in charges in the year to
September 2021, according to figures released by the Home Office. (The
prosecution rate for rape cases is even lower, at 1.3%.) The 1,000-day
wait doesn’t count survivors like Nina, whose case has been languishing
for almost double that.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/03/my-childhood-was-stolen-why-is-my-adulthood-being-taken-too-the-survivors-waiting-1000-days-for-prosecution
The Guardian
Associated Press in Sacramento
3 Mar 2022
<<California mass killing raises troubling questions over guns and
domestic abuse.
The father who fatally shot his three daughters and a man at a
California church this week repeatedly threatened to kill his estranged
girlfriend and scared their girls so much they cried and one bit off her
fingernails, according to a restraining order that was supposed to keep
him away from guns and bullets. But 39-year-old David Mora had both when
he showed up Monday for a supervised visit with his daughters, ages 13,
10 and nine. He shot them, the chaperone he and his ex-girlfriend had
agreed could oversee the weekly visits, and then himself. The violence
at The Church in Sacramento, a nondenominational Christian place of
worship, raised troubling questions. How did Mora get a gun? Should his
arrest a week earlier on felony charges have prompted postponement of
his visitation? And what pushed him over the edge to commit such an act
two days before his middle daughter turned 11? The Sacramento county
sheriff’s office has said little publicly about what investigators have
learned. “We are not disclosing the type of weapon at this time. How he
came to possess a firearm will be part of the investigation,” Sgt Rodney
Grassmann said in a text message on Wednesday. Mora’s five-year
restraining order barred him from possessing firearms, and on a court
document he submitted he denied having any. Moreover, his ex-girlfriend,
who had lived with him and their daughters, didn’t believe he had any
firearms and so didn’t seek what’s known as a <red flag> restraining
order.
Imposing such an order puts the person’s name into databases that are
checked when someone tries to purchase a weapon. That kind of order for
example stopped a former University of California, Los Angeles lecturer
from buying a handgun in Colorado last fall.
Faith Whitmore, chief executive of the Sacramento Regional Family
Justice Center that provides services to victims of domestic abuse, said
a case manager and an attorney who worked with Mora’s estranged
girlfriend last April had no indication Mora had a gun and so there was
no reason to seek the <red flag> order. < At the time that she submitted
the petition for the restraining order, she had checked that he did not
have a weapon,> Whitmore said. <He may or may not have had it, but she
was not aware of it.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/03/california-sacramento-mass-shooting-man-killed-daughters
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