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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
Al Jazeera
By Cara Tabachnick
25 Mar 2022
<<From being property to owning one: A Maasai woman’s struggle for land.
In Maasai custom, girls are largely considered their father’s property –
until they become their husband’s property. Kona Baridi, Kenya – Ipato <Peris>
Kateki knows only one female Maasai landowner – herself. And the
57-year-old, with her small plot in Kajiado county, southern Kenya, is a
rarity among her people. Until 17 years ago, she was not even on the
road to owning anything. Back then, Peris had just given birth to her
fifth child, and had been very sick during the pregnancy. The doctors at
Kenyatta National Hospital confirmed she had HIV/AIDS and health workers
sent Peris back to Kona Baridi in Kajiado, her ancestral home – 20 years
after she had been cast out for the second time. When her father found
out she had the disease, he went around shouting: <She has brought the
taboo to our community.> Her journey from being seen as property to
owning property had begun when Peris was a 12-year-old child bride. Her
father had married her off to a man who was 60 and whom she remembers as
<one who could swallow me alive,> while she walked behind him in tears
to their matrimonial home. A big Maasai ceremony was planned to
celebrate their union. A week later, when the singing and dancing
stopped, she told her husband, <I’m going back home.>.
<Why are you going back home?> her husband asked, shocked. <I just
married you.> Women as property. In Maasai culture, girls are considered
their father’s property, with their worth measured by their dowry,
usually a cow or two. In Kajiado county, 28 percent of Maasai girls are
married before they turn 18, and more than half of them have undergone
female genital mutilation, according to UNICEF.
....
Across the country, women run three-quarters of its farms, yet only two
percent of land titles are held solely by women, according to the World
Bank. And while Kenya has implemented legislation to allow girls to own
land, in reality, if women decide to leave their marriages, the outcomes
are grim, as cultural attitudes still view women as their husband’s
property.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/25/from-being-property-to-owning-one-a-maasai-womans-struggle
Al Jazeera
24 Mar 2022
<<From: 101 East
Saving Nepal’s Mothers
Every day in Nepal, at least three mothers die while giving birth.
Every day in Nepal, at least three mothers die while giving birth.
In the remote mountains of Nepal, a shortage of healthcare means
childbirth can be particularly fraught. For some women who experience
complications, an emergency helicopter service is their only hope. The
rugged terrain makes it a dangerous mission for all those involved, but
it can be crucial in saving the lives of mothers and their newborns. 101
East meets the women risking their lives to become mothers and those
trying to save them. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/101-east/2022/3/24/saving-nepals-mothers
Al Jazeera
21 Mar 2022
<<Pakistan: Brother’s acquittal in Qandeel Baloch murder challenged
Prosecutors say they have appealed to the country’s top court after
Muhammad Waseem was acquitted of killing his celebrity sister.
Pakistani prosecutors say they have appealed to the country’s top court
after a man was acquitted of murdering his celebrity sister over what he
called her <intolerable> behaviour on social media.
Qandeel Baloch – who was dubbed the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan – was
strangled to death in 2016 by her brother Muhammad Waseem.
He had brazenly told local media that he had no remorse for the killing
and was initially sentenced to life in prison. After six years, Waseem
was freed on a legal technicality that allows a victim’s mother to
pardon the crime. The case was considered the most high-profile <honour
killing> of recent years, where women are murdered by male relatives for
purportedly bringing <shame> to the reputation of a family. Pakistan had
passed legislation in 2016 mandating life in prison for honour killings,
supposedly closing a loophole that allowed families to pardon the crime.
But Waseem, 38, was acquitted after a judge ruled the crime was not an
honour killing and so, in line with Pakistan’s other laws on murder,
their mother was still allowed to grant his freedom. <We have challenged
his acquittal, which was granted to him on mere assumptions and
technical grounds,> state prosecutor Khurram Khan told the AFP news
agency on Sunday.
The appeal was filed on Friday, Khan added, but the top court has yet to
fix a date for the hearing. Pakistani MP Maleeka Bokhari said the
Supreme Court has an opportunity to set an important precedent when the
case reaches its doors.>>
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Read all here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/21/pakistan-appeal-over-brother-acquittal-in-qandeel-baloch-murder
Al Jazeera
21 Mar 2022
By Julie Bindel
<<A letter to … Sarah, who was murdered by a serial killer
Journalist Julie Bindel writes to Sarah Jean de Vries – a writer and
victim of the serial killer Robert Pickton – whose powerful reflections
about society letting down sexually exploited women still ring true
today.
Dear Sarah, writer, poet, and one of the many victims of serial killer
Robert Pickton.
In Vancouver in 2012, several years after you went missing, I heard the
evidence you left behind about the hellish violence and abuse of women
on the streets, and the lack of concern from police and too many
citizens. Your beloved sister Maggie read your evidence – diary entries
and poetry – to the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry into how police
forces were investigating cases of missing and murdered women in British
Columbia, and why it took so long to catch your killer. I had an
interest in Pickton’s crimes, having written about them in 2005. I was
researching a book on the global sex trade and knew many feminists
working to end sexual exploitation in Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada.
Pickton preyed on sexually exploited women, namely those struggling to
survive on the streets.
Over the years, you had written in your diary about the man, or men, who
preyed on street prostituted women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside,
long before Pickton was caught. While you had no idea of Pickton’s name
or identity, you knew it was unlikely that his capture would be a
priority because for so long the police maintained the women were
transient and would eventually show up. A decade after first hearing
them, I still can’t get your words out of my head. <Am I next? Is he
watching me now? Stalking me like a predator and its prey. Waiting,
waiting for some perfect spot, time or my stupid mistake. How does one
choose a victim? Good question. If I knew that, I would never get
snuffed,> reads an entry from 1995.
These words made me shiver.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/21/a-letter-to-sarah-who-was-murdered-by-a-serial-killer
Al Jazeera
20 Mar 2022
By Thabi Myeni
<<LONG READ
Features|Women
The anti-apartheid fighter empowering women in South Africa
<I want my legacy to be that of a woman who believed in justice,
equality and doing what is right … Change is my legacy. On a warm Monday
morning on August 24, 1981, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi walked into the
Zimbabwe-based satellite office of South Africa’s anti-apartheid
movement, the African National Congress (ANC), to meet her comrades.
Moments later, she was escorted out of the building in handcuffs, under
arrest on suspicion of murder. It was her 21st birthday. Two white
officers with the Zimbabwean police towered over the <Coloured> South
African woman in a hostile, racially charged interrogation that lasted
several hours. It was a gruelling encounter, Geraldine remembers.
Although the officers did not physically harm her, she was left
emotionally reeling from the verbal assaults. Without appearing in court,
Geraldine was detained. She would spend 17 days in solitary confinement
– part of it at the notoriously dangerous Chikurubi Maximum Security
Prison – for a crime she did not commit. The tale of her arrest and
detention is grim. But for Geraldine – the now-61-year-old who has gone
from the front lines of anti-racist activism to success in politics and
business – the moment was a catalyst. Her politically charged detention
only made her more determined to fight what she saw as the far-reaching
influence of the South African apartheid regime, and it would put her on
a trajectory that took her from young idealistic radical to the helm of
a new democratic government in 1994.> >
Read more and listen to this story here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/20/the-anti-apartheid-fighter-empowering-women-in-south-africa
Al Jazeera
By Gemma Holliani Cahya
19 Mar 2022
<<‘About time’: Indonesia’s NU welcomes women to top leadership
For the first time in its near 100 year history, women are on the
decision-making body of the world’s largest Islamic organisation.
Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s
largest Islamic organisation, has welcomed women into its top leadership
roles for the first time since it was founded nearly 100 years ago. NU
inaugurated more than 150 members, including 11 women, to its central
board for a five-year term. Among the women appointed to the most senior
roles in February was Alissa Wahid who told Al Jazeera that while the
change was <about time and inevitable>, it was also the result of a
continuous process and discussion on women’s roles within NU, which has
some 90 million members. Joining 48-year-old Alissa is incumbent East
Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa. In their new roles, the two
women will have input into the movement’s policy. <I’m really happy with
this change,> said Alissa, the daughter of Indonesia’s late President
Abdurrahman Wahid, better known as Gus Dur, NU’s leader for 10 years
before turning to politics. <Until now NU has been giving more room for
women in public spaces [in the organisation], but now for the first time
in history, it gives room for women at a higher leadership level.> The
appointments are an indication of how NU Secretary General Yahya Cholil
Staquf, who was elected last December, plans to modernise an
organisation that was founded in 1926 and has long been seen as a
champion of religious tolerance in the archipelago.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/19/about-time-indonesias-nu-welcomes-women-to-top-leadership
Al Jazeera
16 March 2022
By Julie Bindel
<<The feminist campaigner telling the stories of murdered women
Feminist campaigner Shonagh Dillon has become a voice for women who have
been silenced by male violence. Shonagh Dillon is a woman on a very
personal mission. A feminist campaigner against all forms of male
violence towards women and girls, she has set up a ground-breaking
organisation that puts the victims of violence first and facilitates
their journey to survival. We chat over Zoom one weekday morning, as
weak sunlight streams through the large windows of her office in
Portsmouth, England. Her clothes, including Dr Marten shoes in a leopard
print design, mark her apart from what she calls <corporate feminists> –
those women on a very high salary who, in Dillon’s words, practise <9 to
5 feminism>. Tall and slim with long brown hair, Dillon’s facial
expressions reveal how she is feeling – anger, distress, frustration,
all apparent as we talk. Her speech is often quick and urgent, her
manner so animated that she almost claps when she agrees with a point I
make about domestic violence or rape.
Dillon grew up in a middle-class, naval family in Portsmouth. Her mother
worked hard to send her daughters to a fee-paying school. <My mum used
my dad’s widow’s pension as well as taking in lodgers to pay for it,>
says Dillon. Her childhood, however, was not all plain sailing. Her
father was an alcoholic, who died when she was young – <probably suicide>,
she says – and she struggled with an eating disorder. <It started when I
was nine years old and went on until I was about 28. In the end, I had
intensive therapy to sort it out as it was exhausting to deal with.>
Nevertheless, when she was 19, Dillon won a place at university to study
law. It was during her degree that she began a relationship with a man
who later broke her collarbone. She did not feel that it was unusual
behaviour at the time, given all the men she knew were <overtly violent>
towards women. <All the men in my circle of friends were aggressive to
women. I escaped them largely because I went to an all-girls school, but
when I look back at it they were all vile,> she says. But even the
broken collarbone did not persuade her to leave him. <He cheated on me
so many times, and eventually left me for someone else,> she says. And
when he did, he left her in debt. They had been together for two years.
Lacking self-esteem and, perhaps more importantly, the social support or
intellectual framework to understand what was happening to her, Dillon
fell into another abusive relationship. <My second abusive partner was
worse, I would say. He really got into my head,> she explains,
describing him as less physically violent but more coercive. He was, she
says, a sadist who performed <shameful> and <degrading> acts on her. She
was with him during her final two years of university. It was only when
her mum saw him being abusive to her that Dillon realised <this has to
stop>.
‘A space to breathe’
Shortly after, she graduated and moved to London with her sister and one
of her best friends. It was 1999. <That was a great time of my life,>
she says. Her experiences of abuse had left her determined to do
something to help other women and children victimised by violent men. <I
wanted to give back to women and children that I knew just needed a bit
of space the same way I had needed it. Just a space to breathe and feel
supported. It is invaluable when you have been a victim to access a
space to feel safe where the other women get it,> she says.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/16/the-feminist-campaigner-telling-the-stories-of-murdered-women
Al Jazeera
15 mar 2022
<<Bangladesh to ban ‘immoral character’ evidence in rape cases
Experts say the Evidence Act, a 19th-century relic of British era, has
been routinely used to discredit the survivors’ testimony.
Bangladesh will ban questions probing the <immoral character> of rape
victims in criminal cases, authorities say, after a long campaign by
rights groups against humiliating interrogations of traumatised
survivors. Experts say the country’s Evidence Act, a 19th-century relic
of the British colonial era, has been routinely used to discredit the
testimony of survivors during court cross-examinations and police
investigations. Female activists have spent more than a decade demanding
the law be amended and last year a coalition of rights groups petitioned
Bangladesh’s top court for its repeal. Justice minister Anisul Huq said
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet has resolved to remove the
character evidence provisions from the law. He said the law currently
allows those accused of rape to <ask questions as to the immoral
character of the victim> but this would be banned, with parliament
expected to formalise the decision by June. <This is another step
towards empowerment of women,> he said.
Prominent activist Nina Goswami of the local Ain o Salish Kendra rights
group hailed the move as a <remarkable achievement>. She said character
evidence had hindered justice for decades, with many survivors deciding
not to seek charges against their attackers out of fear of social
humiliation.
“This will now stop,” she said.
Last year, the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) said
character evidence had been used to cast doubt on victim testimony,
making it difficult to secure guilty verdicts. Rights groups have said
the number of rapes has increased alarmingly in recent years, blaming
legal loopholes and a culture of impunity for violence against women.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Embedded in the article:
1 - ‘I’m alive but not living’: Survivors of Bangladesh’s rape crisis
list 2 of 4
Bangladesh approves death penalty for rape cases after protests
list 3 of 4
Why are women raped with impunity in Bangladesh?
list 4 of 4
Bangladesh town elects country’s first transgender mayor>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/15/bangladesh-to-ban-immoral-character-evidence-in-rape-cases
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