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THE BELOW
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
16 Feb 2022
<<Tigrayan forces killed civilians, gang-raped dozens: Amnesty
Rights group says the rebel fighters raped underage girls, some
as young as 14, in Chenna and Kobo last year.
Tigrayan fighters killed civilians and gang-raped dozens of women
and underage girls in two towns in Ethiopia’s Amhara region last year,
Amnesty International has said. The latest evidence of the toll exacted
by the 15-month war emerged on Wednesday as the rights watchdog said it
interviewed 30 rape survivors and other victims of violence. This was to
call attention to atrocities in the towns of Chenna and Kobo in August
and September after the rebel fighters seized control there. Sarah
Jackson, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn
and the Great Lakes, accused Tigrayan forces of showing <an utter
disregard for fundamental rules of international humanitarian law>.
<Evidence is mounting of a pattern of Tigrayan forces committing war
crimes and possible crimes against humanity in areas under their control
in the Amhara region from July 2021 onwards,> Jackson said. Nearly half
the victims of sexual violence said they were gang-raped. Doctors told
Amnesty that some survivors had suffered lacerations likely caused by
rifle bayonets being inserted into their genitals. Some of the survivors
were as young as 14. <The TPLF leadership must put an immediate end to
the atrocities we have documented and remove from its forces anyone
suspected of involvement in such crimes,> Jackson added. A 14-year-old
schoolgirl told the rights group she and her mother were raped by TPLF
fighters who said the attacks were in revenge for atrocities committed
against their own families. <One of them raped me in the courtyard and
the other raped my mother inside the house,> she said. <My mother is
very sick now, she is very depressed and desperate. We don’t speak about
what happened; it is impossible.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/16/tigray-forces-killed-civilians-gang-raped-dozens-amnesty
The Guardian
15 Feb 2022
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Tracy McVeigh
<<Hiding from the cutters: the fight to save girls from
mutilation in Kenya.
Half rising from the plastic white chair, he jabs a finger toward
a girl and her school friends sitting across the circle from him. <She
will have a future,> says Patrick Ikware, almost shouting. <This cult is
diminishing, but to eliminate it, we need to substitute education, send
our daughters to school and block our ears to the elders.>
The handful of others sitting on mismatched chairs on the grass
outside the school in Masaba nod. A parents’ meeting held for those
opposed to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice almost universal
among women in the Kuria districts of Migori county, western Kenya, is
sparsely attended.
But his daughter, grinning shyly at her father’s defiant words,
like all their daughters, is still at risk. Relatives here, even
neighbours, will entice a girl to the cutting ceremonies if her parents
are not vigilant.
<The problem we have is people who cannot look beyond their own
roof! The elders, our parents and relatives, even our friends, say you
have to cut,> says Ikware. <They cannot tell me what to do with my
daughters and if my daughter graduates from here, I don’t have to expect
her to marry around this community. There are other places.>
The campaign to stop the mutilation of the genitalia of hundreds
of girls at the end of next month, when schools close for Easter, is in
full swing here. School holidays are when the cuttings happen, on girls
from six upwards. The longer the holiday, the more girls who will be cut,
and from March schools are closed for seven weeks. The Christmas
holidays took everyone involved in the anti-FGM movement here by
surprise – cutting ceremonies began at scale in town centres all over
Kuria, on the Kenyan border with Tanzania, enabled by a lack of law
enforcement thanks to the Covid lockdown.
'I don’t want to be cut, but sometimes when I am abused at
school, I feel torn over my decision
Janet Ghati, 15' >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/15/hiding-from-the-cutters-the-fight-to-save-girls-from-mutilation-in-kenya-fgm
The Guardian
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
By Zeinab Mohammed Salih in North Darfur
14 Feb 2022
<<Sudanese woman who killed rapist spouse ‘let down’ by lack of
support. Noura Hussein, the Sudanese woman whose conviction for killing
her rapist husband four years ago caused an international outcry, said
she is “disappointed” that promises of support have not materialised.
Speaking to the Guardian after her release from prison last year,
Hussein, who was 19 when she was convicted, said she felt let down by
the people and organisations that had campaigned for her release and who
had offered her support. <I am disappointed,> she said. <Yes, they
helped me to get an easier sentence at the end, but they also gave me
false promises. Many said that they will help me with my education or to
travel abroad. None of that has happened.> Hussein was sentenced to
death for premeditated murder in 2018, after stabbing her violent
husband, whom she was forced to marry when she was 16. Her conviction
was quashed after a global campaign, backed by celebrities, including
the model Naomi Campbell and actors Mira Sorvino, Emma Watson and Rose
McGowan, as well as lobbying by two UN agencies and the UN Office of the
Special Adviser on Africa. She was eventually convicted of manslaughter
and sentenced to five years in prison. Now released from prison, Hussein
said offers to assist with her studies and help her move to France,
where she has relatives, had not materialised.
Hussein, originally from Gezira state, south of Khartoum, now
lives in North Darfur and last month married her cousin, a market
trader. She said the relationship developed while she was in prison. <He
encouraged me to finish school and supported me a lot to take the
secondary school exam. He pushed me hard to overcome all my challenges
and succeed in the exam,> she said. But she added: <I wasn’t really
planning to get married at this stage of my life. I wanted to finish
school first, but nobody helped me to do so. I wanted to become a lawyer
to help the so many other girls who I left behind in the prison. I had a
feeling of responsibility towards them when I learned their stories. I
wanted to have an organisation to help those girls to have a better
life. They lost their youth behind the bars.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/14/noura-hussein-sudanese-woman-who-killed-rapist-husband-let-down-lack-of-support
Al Jazeera
14 Feb 2022
<<Qandeel Baloch: Pakistan court frees brother for ‘honour’
killing
Muhammad Waseem was arrested in 2016 after he confessed to
killing Qandeel Baloch, 26, for posting what he called ‘shameful’
pictures on Facebook. A Pakistani appeals court on Monday acquitted the
brother of social media star Qandeel Baloch of her murder, a 2016
killing that sparked national outrage and changes in laws covering
so-called <honour killings>. Muhammad Waseem appealed against his 2019
murder conviction and life sentence. His mother had also submitted a
statement in the court that she had pardoned him, he added. It was not
clear whether the court considered the mother’s statement in its
decision. The main amendment in laws dealing with <honour killings> in
the conservative Muslim country was that no one could be set free based
solely on a pardon by a family member.
Waseem had admitted in a 2016 media conference organised by
police that he strangled his 26-year-old sister due to her social media
activities. Mufti Abdul Qawi, a scholar who was arrested for his alleged
involvement in the murder, was later freed as police said they could not
establish a link to the murder. Baloch had posted Facebook posts in
which she spoke of trying to change <the typical orthodox mindset> of
people in Pakistan. She faced frequent abuse and death threats but
continued to post pictures and videos seen as provocative. She had built
a modelling career on the back of her social media fame, but drew ire
from many Pakistanis. Her killing sent shockwaves across Pakistan and
triggered an outpouring of grief on social media, spurring the
government to tighten laws dealing with men who would kill a close
relative in the name of family honour. Hundreds of women are killed each
year in Pakistan by family members over perceived offences to honour,
including elopement, fraternisation with men outside marriage or other
infractions against conservative Muslim values on female modesty.>>
Read more here and view a video:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/14/pakistan-court-frees-man-convicted-of-honour-killing-of-sister
Al Jazeera
By Calvin Manika
14 Feb 2022
<<Climate change forcing Zimbabwean girls into sex work
As global warming continues to devastate rural agriculture, young
women are moving to urban centres – and into prostitution. Epworth,
Zimbabwe – Tawanda, 16, gazes calmly into the sky as the sun sets,
getting ready for work as the night begins. Tawanda, whose name has been
changed to protect her identity, is among hundreds of girls from
Zimbabwe’s rural regions who joined the sex trade in recent years in
urban centres. <We wait until dusk to start working … Mostly our clients
are ones we protect because they do not want to be seen as one is
married and others are respected people in the community. Otherwise, we
are open for 24 hours,> Tawanda says.
Soon after the death of her parents, she dropped out of school as
her grandmother could no longer afford the fees. After years of drought
and failed crops, Tawanda could not see a future in the countryside,
prompting her at age of 14 to relocate to the capital Harare in search
of a better life. <I came here as a babysitter. For six months I worked
as a maid, but it was not lucrative. When the COVID-19 pandemic started,
it became worse because the woman I was working for reduced my already
meagre salary. So I quit the job,> she says. Tawanda did not want to go
back home and relocated to Epworth, 12km (7.5 miles) east of the capital
Harare, where after meeting friends she was initiated into sex work. The
city is notorious for violence, prostitution, and drugs with a
population that continues to increase with rural-to-urban migration.
Tawanda and other teenage girls gather at a spot popularly known as the
<booster>, where a tall communications tower shoots into the sky. During
the day, the area is quiet, with few people around. But once night falls
it is a beehive of activity as sex workers solicit clients. Catherine
Masunda, the founder of Youth 2 Youth, a community-based organisation in
Harare, says while statistics on the number of young girls involved in
prostitution are difficult to quantify, the situation is worrying.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/2/14/climate-change-forcing-zimbabwean-girls-into-to-sex-work
The Guardian
PA Media
12 Feb 2022
<<Police seek man after woman’s hair ripped from scalp in London.
Police have released a photograph of a man they want to speak to after a
woman had hair torn from her scalp in a racially aggravated attack. The
assault took place outside East Croydon Railway Station, south London,
at about 6.45pm on 18 December when the 31-year-old victim got off a
Route 119 bus. Scotland Yard said she had her hair pulled by the
suspect, resulting in a portion being ripped from her scalp. The suspect
then punched her in the back of the head causing her to fall. Police
said the victim sustained facial injuries in the prolonged attack.
Detective Constable Becky Hughes said: <Tackling violent crime,
especially against women and girls, remains our main priority. This was
an entirely unprovoked assault which continued whilst the victim was
lying on the ground.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/12/police-seek-man-after-womans-hair-ripped-from-scalp-in-london
Al Jazeera
By Peter Yeung
12 Feb 2022
<<In Sierra Leone’s swamps, female farmers make profits and peace
After a conflict with mining companies, some female farmers have
adapted to work on an overlooked yet abundant ecosystem.
Matagelema, Sierra Leone – Not long after daybreak in Matagelema,
a village in the south of Sierra Leone’s Moyamba District, a jubilant
chorus rings out from a stretch of a once-neglected swamp surrounded by
tropical forest. <When we are ploughing, people are getting jealous,>
dozens of women farmers sing gleefully, ankle-deep in mud in a sprawling
paddy field. Through their backbreaking work – carving out rice paddies
from thickly-forested swamp land – peace and prosperity are gradually
coming to the conflict-ridden corner of West Africa. Mamie Achion, the
group’s charismatic 45-year-old leader, gestures at orderly blocks of
bunds and canals that form the new irrigation system. <We cut the trees
by hand. It was tough, there was pain,> she says. <But it was an
opportunity for us and we have used it to better our lives.> For many
years, these women tilled the region’s uplands, mostly cultivating the
root vegetable cassava. But conflict regularly flared up between farmers
and miners, who are extracting Moyamba’s rich deposits of rutile, a
mineral used to make a bright white colour in ceramics and paint.
The struggle for resources led to violent tensions, with protests
against mining including roadblocks by angry locals and even a local
chief’s home being burned. <We weren’t getting benefits from mining,>
adds Achion. <The miners’ dredging created water pools in our fields,
damaging the crop. They relieved us of our land.>
Born and raised in Matagelema, Achion – like many of the women –
has also dealt with a lot of adversity besides conflict with mining
companies. Forced to drop out of school to support her farmer parents,
Achion later lost her husband to Ebola, the deadly hemorrhagic fever
that swept across the region in 2014. <I wanted us [women] to come
together,> she says. <Some don’t have fathers, mothers, brothers,
husbands. Many of us are widows, because of Ebola and war.> In 2020,
about 150 women in Matagelema formed a women’s association and moved to
work on inland valley swamps, an overlooked yet abundant ecosystem that
has the potential for very high agricultural yields.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/12/in-sierra-leones-swamps-female-farmers-make-profits-and-peace
The Guardian
11 Feb 2022
<<Scotland reckons with violent witch hunts of its past.
They were accused of sorcery but they were just ordinary women.
Libby Brooks reports on a campaign to pardon those persecuted in witch
trials 300 years ago. ...About 3,837 people, 84% of whom were women,
were tried as witches, and the majority were then executed and burned.>>
Read the full article and listen to the podcast here:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/feb/11/scotland-reckons-with-the-violent-witch-hunts-of-its-past-podcast
Al Jazeera
10 Feb 2022
Catherine Chiniara Charrett
Senior Lecturer in Global Politics at the University of
Westminster, London UK
<<How a Palestinian academic defeated a campaign to silence her
Shahd Abusalama’s case demonstrated the precarious situation
Palestinian academics face in the UK.
When Shahd Abusalama told me about her new job as an associate
lecturer at a UK university, I was beyond proud. But just two weeks
later, she was suspended, after Sheffield Hallam University management
capitulated to a racialised smear campaign launched against her by
Zionist media. Instead of defending Shahd from libellous and defamatory
attacks, the university added fuel to the fire, abdicating its duty of
care towards a young woman of colour.
Shahd’s dismissal provoked a powerful international anti-racist
campaign in her support. The attacks against her were levelled because
of her outspoken and entirely legitimate criticism of the state of
Israel, and the university eventually dropped its investigation of the
unfounded allegations. While Shahd has been reinstated in her teaching
post, she continues to face racist and hateful messages from Zionist
media and trolls. Her suspension is evidence of the precarious situation
many Palestinians in UK higher education find themselves in and the
racist environment they face.
It is not easy starting a career in academia in the UK, and more
so for a Palestinian woman refugee from Gaza.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/2/10/how-a-palestinian-academic-defeated-a-campaign-to-silence-her
Al Jazeera
10 Feb 2022
<<#MeToo: US Congress limits companies’ ability to hide
harassment. New law will eliminate mandatory arbitration clauses in
cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct.
The United States Congress on Thursday gave final approval to
legislation guaranteeing that people who experience sexual harassment at
work can seek recourse in the courts, a milestone for the #MeToo
movement that prompted a national reckoning over sexual misconduct. The
measure, which President Joe Biden is expected to sign, bars employment
contracts from forcing people to settle sexual assault or harassment
cases through arbitration rather than in court. Arbitration is a process
that often benefits employers and keeps misconduct allegations from
becoming public. The bill is retroactive, nullifying arbitration
language in contracts nationwide and opening the door for people who
have been bound by it to take new legal action. Democratic Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand, who has spearheaded the effort, called it <one of
the most significant workplace reforms in American history>. Arbitration
process is secretive and biased and denies people a basic constitutional
right: a day in court, Gillibrand said. <No longer will survivors of
sexual assault or harassment in the workplace come forward and be told
that they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because somewhere
buried in their employment contracts was this forced arbitration clause,>
she said. Gillibrand, who also has focused on combating sexual
harassment and sexual misconduct in the US military, originally
introduced the legislation in 2017 with Republican Senator Lindsey
Graham. The proposal found uncommonly broad, bipartisan support in a
divided Congress. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent. The
House passed the bill earlier this week on a robust bipartisan basis in
a 335- 97 vote.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/10/metoo-us-congress-limits-companies-ability-to-hide-harassment
Al Jazeera
10 Feb 2022
<<Women's Rights.
El Salvador frees woman jailed for murder after a miscarriage
The woman has already served 10 years of a 30-year sentence on
charges of killing her baby. Authorities in El Salvador have freed a
woman who had been jailed on charges of killing her baby after suffering
a miscarriage, according to a local rights group. The 38-year-old woman
was freed on Wednesday. She has already served 10 years of her 30-year
sentence. The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion in El
Salvador said the woman, Elsy, was arrested in June 2011 after reporting
an <obstetric emergency>.
She was then accused of aborting her pregnancy and charged with
aggravated homicide. In El Salvador, abortion under any circumstances is
outlawed, including in cases of rape and incest and even when the
woman’s health is in danger. The Citizen Group released a photo that it
said depicted Elsy after her release from jail and said her original
court case was full of irregularities and without a presumption of
innocence. <We celebrate Elsy’s release after 10 years,> said the
group’s president, Morena Herrera. <Her erroneous 30-year sentence for
aggravated homicide is over. We must continue to fight tirelessly to
free those who remain deprived of liberty.>
Elsy is among 17 women whose freedom the rights group is trying
to win. Last December, as part of a campaign called <Free the 17>,
celebrities including America Ferrera, Milla Jovovich and Kathryn Hahn
called on Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to free the women.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/10/el-salvador-frees-woman-jailed-for-murder-after-a-miscarriage
Al Jazeera
From: Talk to Al Jazeera
5 Feb 2022
<<Apolline Traore: Burkina Faso’s resilience through art. One of
Burkina Faso’s top filmmakers discusses the art of cinema in Africa;
what’s on the screen and what’s left out. <To make a film is easy; to
make a good film is war,> Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu once said. And for filmmakers in a country like Burkina Faso,
mired by years of conflict and instability, the challenges are even
greater. But despite the continuing violence, a pan-African film
festival in the capital Ouagadougou gathered filmmakers – resilient in
the face of conflict – to bring hope through art. There, we caught up
with one of the top Burkinabe filmmakers and explored the art of cinema
in Africa; what is on the screen and what is left out. Apolline Traore
talks to Al Jazeera.>>
Watch the video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/talk-to-al-jazeera/2022/2/5/apolline-traore-burkina-fasos-resilience-through-art
The Guardian
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Fri 4 Feb 2022 09.38 GMT
<<My dying grandmother’s pain inspired me to challenge Zimbabwe’s
pharmacy system.
By Dudzai Mureyi
In July 2015, as my 82-year-old grandmother, Sophie Mafuku, lay
dying of a terminal illness in Zimbabwe, I spent a day speaking to
fellow pharmacists as I tried to fill her morphine prescription. If it
takes 24 hours for the grandmother of a well-connected medical
professional to access scarce drugs, I thought, how long is it taking
people with no connections? It set me off on a journey. In Zimbabwe,
systemic shortages are common. Sometimes, only a handful of pharmacies
have particular drugs in stock. The shortages are caused by
well-documented economic challenges, which affect Zimbabwe’s capacity to
manufacture or import medicines. Moreover, prices vary across
private-sector pharmacies because medicine prices in Zimbabwe are not
regulated. Comparing prices is essential for people who have to spend
hard-earned US dollars on medicines (some businesses refuse payments in
the local currency and from some health insurance plans). The impact of
shortages and cost variations are exacerbated in Zimbabwe by advertising
laws which prohibit marketing medicines. This is not unusual – many
governments have such restrictions as a public safety measure. In
Zimbabwe, however, this well-intentioned regulation means that
pharmacies cannot publicise that they have a drug that is unavailable or
more expensive elsewhere. Consequently, people often have to trudge from
pharmacy to pharmacy enquiring about availability and price in a process
that is costly and distressing when a loved one is ill. It also
undermines a person’s right to access medication. Motivated by my own
family’s experience, I set out to see if there was a way to crowdsource
real-time inventory and price information from hundreds of pharmacies
around Zimbabwe. I came up with the Medical Information Service (MIS) –
a platform that would allow Zimbabweans to send the name or picture of
the medicines they want to a WhatsApp number. MIS would then crowdsource
information from staff at licensed pharmacies in each region of the
country, and in a matter of minutes relay the information about where
the drugs were in stock and at what price. In 2015, this proposal was
resisted by state healthcare regulators, who viewed it as a covert way
to illegally advertise. It took the supreme court to rule in November
2018 that MIS was legal. A further three years later, in 2021, the
Zimbabwean government, through a fund for digital innovators, awarded me
a grant of Z$4m (about £16,000 at the time the award was announced), to
help implement the service.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/04/my-dying-grandmothers-pain-inspired-me-to-challenge-zimbabwe-pharmacy-system
Al Jazeera
From: Talk to Al Jazeera
5 Feb 2022
<<Apolline Traore: Burkina Faso’s resilience through art. One of
Burkina Faso’s top filmmakers discusses the art of cinema in Africa;
what’s on the screen and what’s left out. <To make a film is easy; to
make a good film is war,> Oscar-winning director Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu once said. And for filmmakers in a country like Burkina Faso,
mired by years of conflict and instability, the challenges are even
greater. But despite the continuing violence, a pan-African film
festival in the capital Ouagadougou gathered filmmakers – resilient in
the face of conflict – to bring hope through art. There, we caught up
with one of the top Burkinabe filmmakers and explored the art of cinema
in Africa; what is on the screen and what is left out. Apolline Traore
talks to Al Jazeera.>>
Watch the video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/talk-to-al-jazeera/2022/2/5/apolline-traore-burkina-fasos-resilience-through-art
The Guardian
Rights and freedom is supported by
Humanity United
By Nu Nu Lusan and Emily Fishbein
Fri 4 Feb 2022 08.00 GMT
<<Mothers of the Myanmar revolution: ‘I worry about whether he
has warm clothes’.
When Peh Reh’s* mother, Mi Nya*, lost contact with him in
September, she had little doubt as to where he had gone. Four months
earlier, the 19-year-old had told her he wanted to join the armed
resistance against the military, which had seized power from the
democratically-elected government in Myanmar in February 2021. Yet she
refused to let him leave their home in Myanmar’s south-eastern Karenni
state (also known as Kayah). <In my eyes, he is still so young,> she
says. <If I could, I would like to keep my son next to me all the time.>
Intense fighting between armed revolutionary groups and the military had
been escalating in Karenni state since May, three months after the coup.
Like thousands of other families, Peh Reh and his family left their
homes and sought shelter in the forest. There, he and his father waited
for lulls in the fighting to return to tend to their farm, while his
mother went deeper into the forest with the three younger children. The
family tried to return home but were forced to flee a second time as the
fighting escalated around their village. A few days later, Peh Reh
disappeared. The next time his mother heard from him he was in a
training camp for an armed revolutionary group. This time, Mi Nya
decided not to stand in his way. <I told [my son] to pray and be careful
at all times. I also pray for him every day> she says.
Peh Reh is one of a rising number of young men and women across
Myanmar leaving their families to take up arms as the country is plunged
into violence, poverty and mass displacement, with more than 1,400
civilians killed in military crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement
since February 2021. As the people of Myanmar endure internet blackouts,
arbitrary arrests, a ruthless curtailing of freedom of speech, and
escalating military attacks on civilian areas, many of the country’s
youth have decided armed resistance is their only option.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/04/mothers-myanmar-revolution-i-worry-about-whether-he-has-warm-clothes
Note by Gino d'Artali: Also view a cartoon by
Comic by JC titled <‘My first time holding a gun’: from Myanmar
student to revolutionary soldier.
And a related article by The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/04/from-student-to-revolutionary-soldier-one-young-myanmar-womans-story-a-cartoon
The Guardian
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Fri 4 Feb 2022 09.38 GMT
<<My dying grandmother’s pain inspired me to challenge Zimbabwe’s
pharmacy system.
By Dudzai Mureyi
In July 2015, as my 82-year-old grandmother, Sophie Mafuku, lay
dying of a terminal illness in Zimbabwe, I spent a day speaking to
fellow pharmacists as I tried to fill her morphine prescription. If it
takes 24 hours for the grandmother of a well-connected medical
professional to access scarce drugs, I thought, how long is it taking
people with no connections? It set me off on a journey. In Zimbabwe,
systemic shortages are common. Sometimes, only a handful of pharmacies
have particular drugs in stock. The shortages are caused by
well-documented economic challenges, which affect Zimbabwe’s capacity to
manufacture or import medicines. Moreover, prices vary across
private-sector pharmacies because medicine prices in Zimbabwe are not
regulated. Comparing prices is essential for people who have to spend
hard-earned US dollars on medicines (some businesses refuse payments in
the local currency and from some health insurance plans). The impact of
shortages and cost variations are exacerbated in Zimbabwe by advertising
laws which prohibit marketing medicines. This is not unusual – many
governments have such restrictions as a public safety measure. In
Zimbabwe, however, this well-intentioned regulation means that
pharmacies cannot publicise that they have a drug that is unavailable or
more expensive elsewhere. Consequently, people often have to trudge from
pharmacy to pharmacy enquiring about availability and price in a process
that is costly and distressing when a loved one is ill. It also
undermines a person’s right to access medication. Motivated by my own
family’s experience, I set out to see if there was a way to crowdsource
real-time inventory and price information from hundreds of pharmacies
around Zimbabwe. I came up with the Medical Information Service (MIS) –
a platform that would allow Zimbabweans to send the name or picture of
the medicines they want to a WhatsApp number. MIS would then crowdsource
information from staff at licensed pharmacies in each region of the
country, and in a matter of minutes relay the information about where
the drugs were in stock and at what price. In 2015, this proposal was
resisted by state healthcare regulators, who viewed it as a covert way
to illegally advertise. It took the supreme court to rule in November
2018 that MIS was legal. A further three years later, in 2021, the
Zimbabwean government, through a fund for digital innovators, awarded me
a grant of Z$4m (about £16,000 at the time the award was announced), to
help implement the service.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/04/my-dying-grandmothers-pain-inspired-me-to-challenge-zimbabwe-pharmacy-system
Al Jazeera
By Bilal Kuchay
1 Feb 2022
<<Outrage as woman allegedly gang-raped, paraded in India’s
capital
Three minor boys accused of sexually assaulting the woman, who
was also allegedly tortured and paraded in the streets.
Police in India have arrested 12 people, including eight women
and three minor boys, over alleged sexual assault and parading of a
young woman in the streets of capital New Delhi. Police on Tuesday told
Al Jazeera the three minors are accused of sexually assaulting the woman,
who is in her 20s, in a neighbourhood in the city’s east as India
celebrated its Republic Day on January 26. Police said the young woman
was allegedly gang-raped, her hair chopped off by the women of the house
where she was attacked and her face blackened. A video of the attack,
available on social media, shows the victim being brutally slapped and
kicked by the women as others in the house clap and cheer. The attack
continues for several minutes as the woman pleads for mercy, her body
crouched and hands folded. After the beating, she was dragged out of the
house and paraded in the narrow lanes of the neighbourhood, with a
garland of discarded slippers hung around her neck. Videos of the
incident show a crowd of people watching the assault that took place
right before the woman’s paternal house. The police arrived and rescued
the woman. <She is in a government shelter home. We are providing
security to her family,> senior police official R Sathiyasundaram told
Al Jazeera over the telephone. Police said the young woman was allegedly
gang-raped, her hair chopped off by the women of the house where she was
attacked and her face blackened. A video of the attack, available on
social media, shows the victim being brutally slapped and kicked by the
women as others in the house clap and cheer. The attack continues for
several minutes as the woman pleads for mercy, her body crouched and
hands folded. After the beating, she was dragged out of the house and
paraded in the narrow lanes of the neighbourhood, with a garland of
discarded slippers hung around her neck. Videos of the incident show a
crowd of people watching the assault that took place right before the
woman’s paternal house. The police arrived and rescued the woman. <She
is in a government shelter home. We are providing security to her family,>
senior police official R Sathiyasundaram told Al Jazeera over the
telephone. Local media reports said the attack took place because the
woman, mother of a three-year-old child, had repeatedly rejected the
advances of a teenager who lived next to her parent’s house in the
city’s Kasturba Nagar area. The 16-year-old boy’s family claims he
killed himself following the rejection in November last year. Reports
said the teen’s death caused the purported <revenge attack>. <The boy
committed suicide in November last year and his family is now blaming
the victim. They have alleged it was because of her that he took the
extreme step. To exact revenge on her, they allegedly abducted her. They
wanted to teach her a lesson,> several media reports quoted a senior
police official as saying last week. The woman’s sister, whose identity
cannot be revealed for legal reasons, told a local news website the teen
who died had <fallen in love> with the victim. <He used to keep calling
and asking her to leave her husband and be with him. She would always
refuse,> she told newslaundry.com. She said her sister was abducted on
the morning of January 26 by four men from outside her husband’s house
in New Delhi’s Karkardooma area, a 10-minute drive from the teen’s home
in Kasturba Nagar where she was brought and sexually assaulted and
tortured. The incident has caused outrage in India, considered a <dangerous
place> for women. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/india-new-delhi-alleged-gang-rape-torture-woman-revenge-attack
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