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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
WELCOME TO PART 9 OF GLOBAL ATROCITIES AGAINST
WOMEN.
YOU ARE HERE: International Women's Day 2021 i.e. Atrocities
against women Part 9
The Guardian
By Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
30 Nov 2021
<<France
Josephine Baker, music hall star and civil rights activist,
enters Panthéon.
French-American war hero is first Black woman inducted into Paris
mausoleum for revered figures.
Josephine Baker, the French-American civil rights activist, music
hall superstar and second world war resistance hero, is set to become
the first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon mausoleum of revered
historical figures – taking the nation’s highest honour at a moment when
tensions over national identity and immigration are dominating the
run-up to next year’s presidential race.
The elaborate ceremony on Tuesday – presided over by the French
president, Emmanuel Macron – will focus on Baker’s legacy as a
resistance fighter, activist and anti-fascist who fled the racial
segregation of the 1920s US for the Paris cabaret stage, and who fought
for inclusion and against hatred.
Members of the French air force will carry a coffin containing
handfuls of soil from four places where Baker lived: the US city of St
Louis where she was born; Paris, where her music hall performances
subverted racial and sexual stereotypes and made her the highest-paid
performer of her time; the Château des Milandes, where she lived, in
south-west France; and Monaco, her final home. The coffin will be placed
in a tomb reserved for her in the Panthéon’s crypt. Her family has
requested that her body remain buried in Monaco, where she died aged 68
in 1975.
A vast projection on the outside of the hallowed Parisian
monument will recall scenes from Baker’s life, which the Élysée Palace
called <incredible>, describing her as an exceptional figure who
embodied the French spirit. Macron’s office said this was recognition
that Baker’s <whole life was dedicated to the twin quest for liberty and
justice>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/30/black-french-american-rights-activist-josephine-baker-enters-pantheon
Al Jazeera
30 Nov 2021
<<Women
Inquiry finds widespread sexism in Australian parliament.
One in three Australian parliamentarians have experienced sexual
harassment, a government-backed report has found.
A high-profile inquiry into sexual harassment and bullying in
Australia’s parliament has found <sexist culture> to be widespread. The
government-backed report – released on Tuesday following a seven-month
investigation – said one in three people currently working at the
parliament <have experienced some form of sexual harassment while
working there>.
Including 63 percent of the country’s female parliamentarians.
<Aspiring male politicians who thought nothing of, in one case,
picking you up, kissing you on the lips, lifting you up, touching you,
pats on the bottom, comments about appearance, you know, the usual… the
culture allowed it,> said one of the report’s 1,700 interviewees.
The report made 28 recommendations, including a formal statement
of acknowledgement by political leaders, targets to increase gender
diversity and <a proactive focus on safety and wellbeing>.
The inquiry was launched amid widespread outrage at the alleged
rape of Brittany Higgins, a parliamentary staffer, inside a minister’s
office after a night out with conservative Liberal Party colleagues in
2019.
Her allegations, which are still before the court, were followed
by a string of allegations of rape and sexual harassment against
politicians and their staffers that sparked nationwide demonstrations
and demands for reform.
Higgins on Tuesday welcomed the report and thanked <the many
brave people who shared their stories which contributed to this review>.
<I hope all sides of politics not only commit to but implement
these recommendations in full,> she said in a statement sent via the
Australian National University, where she is now a visiting fellow.
Green Party Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described the report as a
<damning expose of the sexist culture and harassment in politics>.>>
SOURCE: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
30 Nov 2021
<<From: Africa Direct
On the White Nile: A South Sudan businesswoman.
An immersive river ride into the world of Rebecca Chol, a
spirited and resilient South Sudanese fisherwoman.
On the White Nile, by filmmaker Akuol de Mabior, takes us into
the world of Rebecca Lith Chol. From the stern of her long wooden boat,
Rebecca steers her crew down the White Nile, running her small fishing
business.
She is a formidable, courageous woman – in charge of her boat,
her business and her destiny.
Hers is a precarious living, but despite a life of hardship, her
philosophical outlook and strong heart drive her forward.
Director/producer Akuol de Mabior is a South Sudanese filmmaker
based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has directed short films that have been
screened at festivals around the world and is currently working on her
first feature documentary, Nyandeng, which received the Whickers Film
and TV Funding Award (2020) and the IDFA Bertha Classic Fund (2020).>>
Watch the video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/africa-direct/2021/11/30/on-the-white-nile-a-south-sudan-businesswoman
28 Nov 2021
Shawn Yuan
<<Child Rights
Iraq: Court hearing resumes on marriage of 12-year-old girl.
Despite the furore surrounding the case, legal scholars say many
other child-marriage situations do not get the same level of attention.
Baghdad, Iraq – A court has resumed hearing a case in which a
judge was asked to formalise a religious wedding between a 12-year-old
girl and a 25-year-old man, raising concerns across Iraq.
It was not clear whether a verdict would be given on Sunday.
The court, located in Baghdad’s Kadhamiya district, adjourned the
case last week as demonstrators rallied in front of the court, chanting
and holding banners with slogans such as: <Child marriage is a crime
against children,> and <No to child marriage>.
<Children should be at home watching cartoons, not be married,>
said one demonstrator in front of the courthouse last week. <That’s why
we are here today to show our condemnation.>
The case was first brought under the spotlight when the mother of
the girl – in a video – called on authorities to save her daughter. The
mother told local media her 12-year-old daughter had been raped and
forced into a marriage to her stepfather’s brother.
A department of the Ministry of Interior that deals with violence
against women, however, said in a statement after meeting the girl, her
father, and her husband that it was assured she had not been coerced
into marriage.
<No matter what, a marriage between a 12-year-old girl and a
25-year-old man is simply not acceptable,> Hala, an advocate for women’s
and children’s rights in Iraq, told Al Jazeera, asking to be identified
only by her first name.
The law in Iraq states the legal age for marriage is 18, but that
it could be lowered to 15 in “urgent” cases should the person in
question’s father consent to marriage.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), a universal legal document aimed at protecting
women’s rights, also states marriage under the age of 18 is a form of
forced marriage.
Yet despite the legal provisions, child marriage is rampant in
Iraq, especially in rural areas, and other countries in the region.
Poverty and religious practices drove many parents into marrying their
young daughters off, hoping it would either ease the burden of the
family or bring financial support.
According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
conducted by the government of Iraq and published in 2018, 7.2 percent
of married women aged 20 to 24 were first wed before they turned 15
years old, and another 20.2 percent were married before age 18.
<Child marriage is a violation of human rights, compromising the
development of girls and often resulting in early pregnancy and social
isolation, with little education and poor vocational training
reinforcing the gendered nature of poverty,> UNICEF, a participant in
the survey, said.
Despite the furore surrounding this case, many other girls do not
enjoy the same level of attention, according to legal professionals.
<This case gets particular media attention because the mother of
the young girl went on social media and stirred up nationwide discussion,>
Mariam Albawab, a Baghdad-based lawyer who works on children’s rights
cases in Iraq, told Al Jazeera.
<However, there are thousands of cases that have gone under the
media radar, and many of those marriages went ahead without much notice
or condemnation.>
Save the Children, an international NGO, has called for the
minimum age of marriage to be at least 18 years and for the removal of
any exceptions to this rule.
<You thought the story in Capernaum would all be fictional, but
in fact, its plotline is being replayed every day here in Iraq,> Hala
said, referring to the Lebanese film released in 2018 with a story that
entailed a money-strapped family trying to sell their 11-year-old
daughter in exchange for two chickens.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/28/iraq-court-hearing-resumed-for-the-marriage-of-12-year-old-girl
And also read this Al Jazeera article published 25 Nov 2021:
<<Child marriage: Why does it persist in the US?>>
read and view more here:
<<https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2020/11/25/child-marriage-why-does-it-persist-in-the-us
Opinion by Gino d'Artali:
If you don't
call forced marriage an act of non-violence against women you're guilty
as a pretator and should be brought to face trial!
Al Jazeera
29 Nov 2021
<<Bangladesh doctors fear for opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s
life.
Doctors treating the ex-PM say they fear for her life if she was
not allowed to fly abroad for medical care.
<<Bangladesh doctors fear for opposition leader Khaleda Zia’s
life.
Doctors treating the ex-PM say they fear for her life if she was
not allowed to fly abroad for medical care.
Bangladesh doctors treating ailing opposition leader and ex-Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia say they fear for her life if she is not allowed to
fly abroad for medical care. Zia, the 76-year-old leader of the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and archrival of current Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.
Her doctors said she suffered three big internal bleeds in the past two
weeks.
<We don’t have the means and supportive technology… here to
control and stop rebleeding,> her chief doctor Fakhruddin Mohammad
Siddiqui told reporters on Sunday at her home, flanked by four other
doctors on her medical team.
He said there was a 50-percent chance that Zia would suffer
another internal bleed in the next week, and a 70-percent chance it
would occur in the next six weeks.
<The chances of controlling the rebleeding are slim,> he said.
<In that case, there is higher risk of her death.>
<If we want to save the life of the patient, we need to do TIPS,>
he said, referring to a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt, a
medical procedure he said was available only in medically advanced
countries such Germany, the UK, and the US.
Zia has been in the critical care unit of a Dhaka hospital since
November 13, just five months after she recovered from COVID-19.
But the leader of the main opposition party has been barred by a
court from leaving the country after being convicted on corruption
charges in 2018.
As her condition has worsened, BNP activists and supporters have
staged protests across the country, demanding she be allowed to travel
for treatment.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/29/bangladesh-doctors-opposition-leader-ex-pm-khaleda-zia-bnp
And 3 more links to articles about Khaleda Zia previously
published by Al Jazeera:
Protests in Bangladesh after ex-PM Zia’s health deteriorates
Bangladesh says it will free jailed opposition leader Khaleda Zia
Profile: Khaleda Zia
Al Jazeera
29 Nov 2021
<<Opposition leads after ‘massive’ turnout in Honduras election.
Victory for Xiomara Castro would make her Honduras’s first female
president and first from the left since 2009.
Initial results from the presidential election in Honduras show
opposition candidate Xiomara Castro with a clear lead over conservative
ruling party contender Nasry Asfura after both sides claimed victory
after polls closed on Sunday. Castro, whose running mate is Salvador
Nasrala, declared herself the winner despite orders from the National
Electoral Council to political parties to await official results.
<We win! We win!> Castro, Honduras’ former first lady who is
making her third presidential run, told cheering Liberty and
Refoundation Party (LIBRE) supporters when only a fraction of the
ballots had been tallied.
The National Party also quickly declared victory for its
candidate, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, but the early returns were
not promising.
With 45 percent of the polling station tallies in, Castro had 53
percent of the votes and Asfura 33 percent, according to the National
Electoral Council preliminary count. The council said turnout was more
than 68 percent.
If the opposition standard-bearer wins, she would become the
first female president in Honduras and return the left to power for the
first time since her husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, was
overthrown in a 2009 coup.
The electoral council earlier said more than 2.7 million voters
had already cast ballots, a figure described in a statement as a
“massive turnout” with more votes yet to be counted.
The initial turnout is already higher than the 2017 total, said
council president Kelvin Aguirre. But nearly 8 percent of 5,755 polling
places were having transmission problems filing vote tallies with
electoral authorities, which was expected to delay results.
A strong turnout has raised expectations of change after a dozen
years of National Party rule.
Left-wing Castro has sought to unify opposition to outgoing
President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who has denied accusations of having
ties to powerful gangs, despite an open investigation in the United
States linking him to alleged drug trafficking. After allying with the
2017 runner-up, a popular TV host, most polls have reinforced her
frontrunner status.
<We can’t stay home. This is our moment. This is the moment to
kick out the dictatorship,> said Castro, mobbed by reporters just after
voting in the town of Catacamas.
Long queues could be seen at many polling places across the
country, where some 5.2 million Hondurans are eligible to vote.
The election is the latest political flashpoint in Central
America, a leading source of US-bound refugees and migrants fleeing
chronic unemployment and gang violence. Honduras is among the world’s
most violent countries, although homicide rates have dipped recently.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/29/opposition-ruling-party-claim-poll-win-after-massive-turnout
Al Jazeera
By Zena Al Tahhan
Nov 29 2021
<<Palestine: Femicide highlights need for domestic violence law.
The killing of a 30-year-old mother in occupied Ramallah by her
husband has caused an uproar among Palestinians.
Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – In the early hours of November 22,
Sabreen Yasser Khweira, 30, was allegedly stabbed to death by her
husband in a small Palestinian village on the outskirts of occupied
Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority (PA) police found Khweira’s body
inside her home in the village of Kufr Ni’ma. Her husband also attacked
his own mother, 75, who suffered injuries and was transferred to the
nearest hospital in Ramallah. She sustained injuries, but is in stable
condition.
The suspect, identified as Amer Rabee, fled the scene but was
arrested later that same morning, while Khweira’s body was transferred
for a forensic medical examination as part of an investigation into the
killing.
The Khweira family are now calling on authorities to execute
Rabee as a punishment for the gruesome killing – a demand also backed by
Rabee’s family. Khweira’s murder came as the world marked the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on
November 25 and launched a 16-day global campaign demanding an end to
gender-based violence (GBV), including in Palestine where awareness
activities are being held. The killing has caused an uproar among
Palestinians about the persistence of domestic violence and patriarchal
norms in Palestinian society.
So far in 2021, more than 20 women have been killed in the
occupied Palestinian territories in domestic violence, while at least 15
other Palestinian women were killed inside Israel.
The Khweira family has said that her husband had been violent
throughout their 12-year marriage and that the mother of four had left
the house multiple times. Jumaa Tayeh, Khweira’s uncle and the family’s
elected media spokesperson, told Al Jazeera that her husband spent a
month in prison earlier this year after she filed a complaint with the
police for one incident in which he beat her with cables.
<She was severely bruised – she had marks all over her body. I
was with her when we filed a complaint to the police’s Family Protection
Units. There were several court hearings, and he spent a month before he
was released,> Tayeh said.
Al Jazeera reached out to the media officer for the PA’s Public
Prosecution regarding pre-existing domestic violence cases filed by
Khweira, but was told that this information could not be disclosed at
this stage due to the ongoing investigation.
Tayeh said Rabee was released five days before the killing after
spending 40 days in jail for a drug-related case. <She spent one night
with him after his release, and then he started threatening to hurt her,
so she went back to her father’s house,> her uncle said The night she
was killed, he had threatened to hurt her 11-year-old son who was at his
grandmother’s house next door, so she would come home. When she returned,
<he killed her.>
Vicious cycle
Tayeh said that Khweira had begun to file for divorce several
months earlier, but was going through difficult times, particularly with
the loss of her 33-year-old brother, Saif, to cancer this year.
Her uncle himself was released from Israeli prisons only a year
and a half ago after 25 years, and her father lives in Jordan because
Israel has prohibited his return.
<She would escape from his oppression and stay at her father’s
house, and her family would support her every time and tell her to
divorce him, but she was fearful for her children’s future and she kept
going back to him in hopes that he would change and take on
responsibility,> said Tayeh.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/11/29/palestinefemicide
The Guardian
29 Nov 2021
By Sean Ingle in Dubai
<<World Chess Championship 2021
‘It is not biology’: Women’s chess hindered by low numbers and
sexism.
The governing body is pushing to make the game more welcoming for
women – but is change happening fast enough?
Towards the end of the Queen’s Gambit, the Netflix show that
helped to supercharge the new chess boom, Beth Harmon crushes a series
of top male grandmasters before beating Vasily Borgov, the Russian world
champion. Fiction, though, remains sharply separated from fact. As
Magnus Carlsen was reminded before starting his world title defence in
Dubai last week, there is not a single active woman’s player in the top
100 now that Hou Yifan of China, who is ranked 83rd, is focusing on
academia. The lingering question: why?
For Carlsen, the subject was <way too complicated> to answer in a
few sentences, but suggested a number of reasons, particularly cultural,
were to blame. Some, though, still believe it is down to biology. As
recently as 2015 Nigel Short, vice-president of the world chess
federation Fide, claimed <men are hardwired to be better chess players
than women,> adding: <You have to gracefully accept that.>
That claim raises the eyebrows of the greatest female chess
player, Judit Polgar, who was ranked as high as No 8 in the world and,
amusingly, has a winning record against Short. <It is not down to
biology,> she tells the Guardian. <It’s just as possible for a woman to
become the best as any guy. But there are so many difficulties and
social boundaries for women generally in society. That is what blocks
it.>
Polgar, who defeated 11 current or former world champions in
either rapid or classical chess, including Garry Kasparov and Magnus
Carlsen, before retiring in 2014, believes that an early start,
encouraging girls to think big, and better teaching are crucial factors.
<All champions and big players start to play chess and get familiar with
the game at a pretty early age,> says the Hungarian grandmaster, who is
now a commentator on the website Chess24.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/29/womens-chess-sexism-misogyny
Al Jazeera
28 Nov 2021
Shawn Yuan
<<Child Rights
Iraq: Court hearing resumes on marriage of 12-year-old girl.
Despite the furore surrounding the case, legal scholars say many
other child-marriage situations do not get the same level of attention.
Baghdad, Iraq – A court has resumed hearing a case in which a
judge was asked to formalise a religious wedding between a 12-year-old
girl and a 25-year-old man, raising concerns across Iraq.
It was not clear whether a verdict would be given on Sunday.
The court, located in Baghdad’s Kadhamiya district, adjourned the
case last week as demonstrators rallied in front of the court, chanting
and holding banners with slogans such as: <Child marriage is a crime
against children,> and <No to child marriage>.
<Children should be at home watching cartoons, not be married,>
said one demonstrator in front of the courthouse last week. <That’s why
we are here today to show our condemnation.>
The case was first brought under the spotlight when the mother of
the girl – in a video – called on authorities to save her daughter. The
mother told local media her 12-year-old daughter had been raped and
forced into a marriage to her stepfather’s brother.
A department of the Ministry of Interior that deals with violence
against women, however, said in a statement after meeting the girl, her
father, and her husband that it was assured she had not been coerced
into marriage.
<No matter what, a marriage between a 12-year-old girl and a
25-year-old man is simply not acceptable,> Hala, an advocate for women’s
and children’s rights in Iraq, told Al Jazeera, asking to be identified
only by her first name.
The law in Iraq states the legal age for marriage is 18, but that
it could be lowered to 15 in “urgent” cases should the person in
question’s father consent to marriage.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), a universal legal document aimed at protecting
women’s rights, also states marriage under the age of 18 is a form of
forced marriage.
Yet despite the legal provisions, child marriage is rampant in
Iraq, especially in rural areas, and other countries in the region.
Poverty and religious practices drove many parents into marrying their
young daughters off, hoping it would either ease the burden of the
family or bring financial support.
According to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
conducted by the government of Iraq and published in 2018, 7.2 percent
of married women aged 20 to 24 were first wed before they turned 15
years old, and another 20.2 percent were married before age 18.
<Child marriage is a violation of human rights, compromising the
development of girls and often resulting in early pregnancy and social
isolation, with little education and poor vocational training
reinforcing the gendered nature of poverty,> UNICEF, a participant in
the survey, said.
Despite the furore surrounding this case, many other girls do not
enjoy the same level of attention, according to legal professionals.
<This case gets particular media attention because the mother of
the young girl went on social media and stirred up nationwide discussion,>
Mariam Albawab, a Baghdad-based lawyer who works on children’s rights
cases in Iraq, told Al Jazeera.
<However, there are thousands of cases that have gone under the
media radar, and many of those marriages went ahead without much notice
or condemnation.>
Save the Children, an international NGO, has called for the
minimum age of marriage to be at least 18 years and for the removal of
any exceptions to this rule.
<You thought the story in Capernaum would all be fictional, but
in fact, its plotline is being replayed every day here in Iraq,> Hala
said, referring to the Lebanese film released in 2018 with a story that
entailed a money-strapped family trying to sell their 11-year-old
daughter in exchange for two chickens.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/28/iraq-court-hearing-resumed-for-the-marriage-of-12-year-old-girl
And also read this Al Jazeera article published 25 Nov 2021:
<<Child marriage: Why does it persist in the US?>>
read and view more here:
<<https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2020/11/25/child-marriage-why-does-it-persist-in-the-us
The Guardian
28 Nov 2021
Vanessa Thorpe
<<Once, not that long ago, Kubra and Arzu were healthy young
Turkish mothers, looking forward to raising their children. Today, sadly,
this is no longer all these charismatic, determined women have in common.
They are now both among the many damaged survivors of violent attacks at
the hands of husbands who believed it was their right to inflict
potentially lethal injury on their wives.
This autumn, the two mothers are the impressive stars of Dying to
Divorce, a British-made documentary, out last week, that has just been
selected to represent Britain at the Oscars as the official entry in the
Best International Feature Film category. The film is a startling,
sensitively made exposé of the murderous misogyny and dangerous politics
behind an epidemic of femicide in Turkey, a country where an astonishing
one in three women is subjected to some form of domestic violence.
Dying to Divorce was released to coincide with <16 Days of
Activism>, the United Nations campaign against gender violence, and it
was made over five long years of care and commitment by director Chloe
Fairweather and her friend and producer, Sinead Kirwan.
The pair, who met at university in Bristol, joined together to
make the documentary after Fairweather met Arzu when she was filming
another project in Turkey. Since then, she and Kirwan have conquered a
series of challenges, including repeated battles for funds and lengthy
delays imposed by a glacial Turkish legal system. <There were lots of
times I felt it was not going to be possible to finish the film,>
admitted Fairweather, <but that was the good thing about having Sinead
there. If one of us was down, the other was offering encouragement. I’m
so pleased it’s been chosen as an Academy Award contender by Bafta,
partly because, although it is such an important story, it would have
been very risky for it to be made inside Turkey by film-makers there.>
At the heart of Fairweather’s documentary is the work of Ipek
Bozkurt, the campaigning Turkish lawyer and activist who has guided both
Kubra and Arzu, along with many others, through the painful aftermath of
appalling injuries, helping them courageously press charges against
their husbands.
Bozkurt is in Britain this weekend for the premiere, and she told
the Observer she remains determined to fight back against prejudices in
the Turkish criminal justice system, working alongside her comrades on
the anti-femicide platform she has established with other Turkish
lawyers as a support for survivors and victims’ families across the
country.
<It is amazing how quickly things have changed in Turkey,”
Bozkurt said. “There is nothing over-dramatic in the way Chloe tells
these stories. There is real restraint, but the injuries speak for
themselves.> >>
View the trailer and the article here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/28/dying-to-divorce-turkish-womens-campaign-against-domestic-violence-is-set-for-oscars
The Guardian
Helen Pidd, Zesha Saleem and Weronika Strzyzynska
26 Nov 2021
<<Twelve-year-old girl dies after assault in Liverpool city centre.
Police say four boys arrested on suspicion of murder after Ava White
suffered ‘catastrophic injuries’.
An <incredibly popular> 12-year-old girl has died after being assaulted
in Liverpool city centre after an altercation.
A murder investigation has been launched following the death of Ava
White, described by her teachers as <much loved, valued and unique>. She
died from <catastrophic injuries> after being attacked when out with
friends on Thursday night during the annual switch-on of the Christmas
tree lights on Church Street.
Four boys – one aged 13, two aged 14 and one aged 15, all from the
Toxteth area of Liverpool – had been arrested on suspicion of murder,
Merseyside police said. Officers were called at approximately 8.39pm to
reports of an assault. A group of boys was seen running away from the
scene. On arrival they discovered Ava collapsed on the ground and a
member of the public who witnessed the incident was giving first aid.
Paramedics attended and Ava was taken to Alder Hey children’s hospital,
where she died a short time later.
Ava was a year 8 pupil at Notre Dame Catholic college in Everton. The
headteacher, Peter Duffy, said: <Ava was a much-loved, valued and unique
member of the Notre Dame family. She was an incredibly popular girl with
a fantastic group of friends. Our deepest thoughts and prayers go out to
Ava’s family and friends and all those affected by this utterly tragic
event. My staff are working with students to provide all the support
they need at this traumatic time.>
Rebecca Flynn, the head of Ava’s former school, Trinity RC primary, also
paid tribute. <Ava was a much loved pupil, who was a popular, caring
member of our school community. Our prayers and thoughts are with Ava’s
family and her friends. We are left with lasting memories of a bright
and respectful little girl.>
A large cordon remained in place in Liverpool city centre on Friday as
forensic investigators gathered evidence. Floral tributes had been left
at the scene, with residents coming to pay their respects and share
their grief.
Flowers and a balloon were left on Church Street by 17-year-old Lacey,
who did not want to give her surname, and her mother. Lacey said her
younger sister had been close friends with Ava. She said: <She was just
a bubbly character, so loving and caring. She came out with her friends
to enjoy herself and I think it’s just wrong that this has happened.>
Safia Robinson, 16, said she had heard about the attack from a teacher
at sixth-form college. <It’s concerning because it was a little kid. It
makes you feel less safe; it doesn’t make me want to go out at night,>
she said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/26/ava-white-dies-assault-liverpool-city-centre
The Guardian
Kim Willsher in Paris
26 Nov 2021
<<French ex-minister Nicolas Hulot accused of rape and sexual assault.
Former environment minister denies allegations as four women come
forward in TV documentary.
A popular French environmentalist and former government minister faces
new allegations of rape and sexual abuse after several woman came
forward in a TV documentary to testify that he had assaulted them. The
claims come four years after Nicolas Hulot, 66, was first accused of
rape by the granddaughter of the late Socialist president François
Mitterrand.
In an interview given just before the documentary was aired on Thursday,
Hulot strenuously denied the accusations and accused the women of lying.
He said he was withdrawing definitively from public life. The Paris
public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, on Friday announced a preliminary
inquiry would be launched into the allegations. Whatever its findings,
such an inquiry would not lead to any formal charges as the alleged
events happened outside the time limit for prosecution.
Four women, described as unknown to each other, claimed on Envoyé
spécial that they had been assaulted by Hulot.
Sylvia – who did not give her second name – broke down in tears as she
described how Hulot forced her to perform oral sex in a vehicle in an
open-air car park in May 1989 when she was 16.
<I was young, I’d never done anything like that. I didn’t understand
what he wanted,> she said.
<I froze. I knew that what was happening shouldn’t be happening, that it
was bad … I knew I was trapped and because I didn’t want to do what he
was trying to make me do, I tried to lean back in the seat.>
She recalled what she said were his last words to her as he dropped her
off in Paris: <He said a phrase that that has haunted me for years, he
said: ‘Redo your makeup a bit because people can see you’ve been doing
something.’ That’s all he said to me.
I left, I didn’t know what had happened. Had I seduced him? Was it
normal? Is that what adults do? I’ve kept this to myself for 30 years. I
was a 16-year-old kid, he was Nicolas Hulot. Who was going to believe
me?>
Hulot stood as a presidential candidate in 2012 and later served as the
ecology transition minister in Emmanuel Macron’s first government
between 2017 and 2018. In 2018, when in his ministerial job, a magazine
claimed he had raped the daughter of a high-profile figure, later
revealed to be Pascale Mitterrand, the granddaughter of the late
Socialist president. A few months later, Hulot resigned suddenly during
a radio interview, citing a disagreement over the government’s
environmental policy.
Mitterrand, who was in contact with Envoyé spécial but did not appear in
the documentary, alleged to police that Hulot had raped her in Corsica
in 1997 when she was 19 and a trainee photographer with the SIPA agency,
whose founder is a close friend of Hulot.
Because the allegations were made out of the legal time limit, the
investigation was closed.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/26/french-ex-minister-nicolas-hulot-accused-of-and-sexual-assault
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: That is why the UN launched again an action
and to take action against violence against women!
Read more here:
https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-violence-against-women-day
Al Jazeera
Infographic
Hannah Dugal
25 Nov 2021
<<November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence
Against Women.
The term <violence against women> encompasses forms of male violence
against women and girls, including intimate partner abuse, sexual
harassment, human trafficking, female genital mutilation (FGM) and child
marriage.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began early last year, one in three women
say they or someone they know has experienced some form of violence,
according to data from 13 countries in a new United Nations report.
Thursday also marks the start of 16 days of activism leading up to
December 10, the International Human Rights Day, whose theme this year
is “Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!”
The five infographics below show how prevalent male violence against
women is around the world.
Intimate partner abuse
Nearly one in three women have been physically, sexually or emotionally
abused by their current or former partner at least once in their life,
according to a report published this year by the World Health
Organization and the UN. The situation is worst in Afghanistan, where
nearly 34 percent of women and girls above 15 have been abused by a
partner, data analysed from UN Women show. Five of the 10 countries
where women and girls are abused the most are in Africa. In the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, 32 percent of women and girls aged 15
or above have been abused by their intimate partners.
Femicide
Some 87,000 women were murdered in 2017, according to the most recent
global homicide report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The rate of intimate partner/family-related homicide was highest in
Africa.
Femicide
Women are killed by male relatives or partners daily around the world.
The UN says 137 women die this way.
Trafficking
Most of the known human-trafficking victims are women and girls, at 46
and 19 percent respectively, according to UNODC.
Seventy-seven percent of women are trafficked for sexual exploitation,
while 14 percent are trafficked for forced labour.
Seventy-two percent of girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation, 21
percent are trafficked for forced labour.
Forced child marriages
Child marriage is prominent in several regions across Africa and in
South Asia. In Africa, Niger has the highest prevalence of child
marriage, with 76 percent of women aged 20 to 24 today who had been
married off before they were 18 years old. South Asia also has a high
proportion of child marriage, with 28 percent of girls forced into
marriage before their 18th birthday and 7 percent before their 15th.
Before Covid-19
The UN estimated that more than 100 million girls would be forced into
marriages in the coming decade. Today it estimates that a futher more
than to million girls will be forced to be married before their 18th.
birthday.
Sexual violence in conflict
Some 550 of 638 recorded instances of sexual violence against civilians
in conflict zones have been women, according to figures by the Armed
Conflict Location and Event Data Project since January 2020.
Sexual violence in conflict and conflict-related sexual violence
includes war-time rape and crimes perpetrated by armed and organised
actors.
Africa accounts for the largest number of instances with 376 incidents,
the most happening in the DRC, with 135 events mostly perpetrated by <unidentified
armed groups>.>>
Source infographic: UN Women VN
Read more and view the infographic here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/25/infographic-mapping-violence-against-women
Al Jazeera
25 Nov 2021
Marienna Pope-Weidemann
Social justice journalist, writer and campaigner
<<The UK is facing an epidemic of violence against women and girls.
None of us has the luxury to watch this struggle from afar any more –
this is a fight for our lives.
<<I do not remember much about that November day four years ago – the
day my cousin Gaia’s body was found less than a mile from where she
disappeared. The paperwork says she died of hypothermia, but Gaia, like
countless others, fell victim to an epidemic of violence against women
and girls which is unfolding in the United Kingdom at terrifying rates
under a government that lacks the insight and the political will to stop
it.
In November 2017, Dorset Police launched a missing persons investigation
to find Gaia. But by then they had already let her down.
In 2015, when she was just 17, Gaia told us that she has been raped and
that she wanted to report it to the police. We are a close-knit family
and my cousins are like sisters to me, so I sat with her through her
police interviews to support her. I also contacted our local rape crisis
centre in an effort to ensure she had access to counselling and advocacy
support.
Gaia did everything she could to bring the man who abused her to justice
and prevent other women and girls from being victimised by him. But
despite her bravery, the police decided not to pursue the case.
The <alleged perpetrator>, Connor Hayes, was already a known sex
offender when Gaia accused him of rape. Dorset police were already aware
of his other, mostly underage, victims. But they still decided to drop
Gaia’s case. Hayes was eventually convicted for other offences, but he
only served a year in prison before he was released to re-offend.
The police failure to prosecute Gaia’s case was a crucial factor in her
health challenges, disappearance and death. The rape crisis centre,
National Health Service or NHS and social services also failed to
support Gaia and to help her cope with this injustice. And, not much has
changed in the four years since we lost Gaia – in fact, things have got
much worse.
Today, women and girls in the UK have even less reason to believe the
police would take the necessary steps to ensure our safety and hold
those who harm us to account. The national conviction rate for even the
most serious sexual offences stands at less than 3 percent, and the odds
are even worse when the victim is Black or a woman from a minority group.
Why would anyone trust the police under these circumstances?
But the police are only one part of the problem. British society as a
whole is knee-deep in misogyny, and this willful ignorance is adding
fuel to the epidemic of violence against women and girls in our country.
Indeed, the British public appears to be highly confused about what
constitutes abuse and what counts as consent. A third of men who
responded to a 2018 survey by YouGov on attitudes to sexual consent, for
example, said if a woman has flirted on a date it generally would not be
rape, even if she had not consented to sex. Twenty-one percent of female
respondents echoed this view. With the state having failed to educate
such a large segment of society on the basics of consent, sexual abuse
cannot even be recognised when it is in front of our faces. Is it any
wonder then that the British police appear unable and unwilling to
protect women and girls?
The British police and justice system have arguably never been on the
side of sexual assault survivors. In recent years, however, due to a
toxic combination of austerity and rising misogyny, they have completely
turned against them – they have elevated disbelieving survivors from an
art to an actual policy
Sarah Everard’s rape and murder by a police officer in London in March
this year, followed by scenes of extreme police brutality directed at
women at her vigil in Clapham, was a gruesome reminder of what most of
us already knew: the police do not protect us.
Sarah’s murder turned the national spotlight on police misogyny and
violence in London and other urban centres, but this is not solely an <urban>
problem. Police forces are working against women and girls in every
corner of this country.
Take the case of Dorset Police. According to data obtained by our
organisation, Justice for Gaia, which was launched in the days after my
cousin’s death to fight for justice for her and for all survivors, of
2,058 sexual offences recorded by Dorset Police between 2019-2020, only
46 resulted in criminal charges. Between 2015-2019, 13 Dorset police
officers or members of staff have been arrested for serious crimes,
including rape, but most have been released without any charges or
disciplinary action. Since 2020, one Dorset police officer has strangled
a local nurse to death, another has been sacked for sexually assaulting
a colleague, and yet another has been found guilty of abusing his
position “to engage in sexual activity with members of the public”.
Another Dorset officer is currently facing gross misconduct charges
related to the Sarah Everard investigation.
Today, it is an undeniable fact that there is an epidemic of violence
against women and girls in Britain, and the police are at the epicentre
of it. No institution that is unwilling to hold perpetrators accountable
within its own ranks can be expected to tackle abuse effectively in
society.
This is why earlier this year Justice for Gaia joined 20 other women’s
organisations to call on Home Secretary Priti Patel to initiate a
meaningful and extensive inquiry into misogyny within the police – a
call which she has not even dignified with a response.
Earlier this week a radio journalist asked me what it feels like to mark
the fourth anniversary of Gaia’s death while things are steadily getting
worse for women and girls. She wanted to know how I manage to remain
hopeful that one day Gaia, and other victims of sexual violence, will
find justice.
The truth is, I am not always hopeful. Sometimes I just lie down and cry.
I only mention this because I know I am not the only one, and it is
important to acknowledge no one can be strong all the time.
But I do keep getting back up and continuing the fight, for three
reasons.
First, I know that is what Gaia would do. She inspires me every day to
try and be as brave as she was.
Second, I know none of us has the luxury to watch this struggle from
afar any more. If we are no longer safe on the streets, in our homes, in
our offices and even in the back of police cars, it means we have no
choice but to fight. This is a fight for our lives.
The last reason is historical perspective. We are undoubtedly going
through hard times. But the women’s movement for justice and equality is
a chain that stretches back many generations. Countless women before us
weathered moments much worse than this to get us where we are today. And
we owe it to those who will come after us to keep the chain intact. We
have a historical responsibility to continue the fight.
Survivors and front-line service providers have said loud and clear what
we need to win this battle: an evidence-based overhaul of the rape
justice system and a fearless equalities analysis to take stock of how
systemic racism and other forms of discrimination block survivors’
access to justice and recovery; an independent investigation into the
perpetrators and failures within the police force; a huge public
awareness campaign around consent; an independent review of judicial
practices that retraumatise survivors; and sustainable funding for
specialist support services.
These are building blocks for safer communities and a future where all
survivors are respected, protected and heard. To win that future, we
will all have to fight for it.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.>>
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/11/25/uk-is-facing-an-epidemic-of-violence-against-women-and-girls
Al Jazeera
25 Nov 2021
<<Gambian commission urges prosecutions for Yahya Jammeh-era abuses.
In a 14,000-page report handed to President Barrow gives details of
nearly 400 victims of torture, killing and rape.
A long-awaited report into allegations of abuse committed during former
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule has recommended to the
government to pursue criminal charges against those responsible.
Rights groups have long pushed for prosecutions for the litany of
alleged crimes, such as the use of death squads and rape, committed
during Jammeh’s time in office, which ended in 2017.
The 14,000-page document was handed on Thursday by the Truth,
Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) to President Adama
Barrow, nine days before a presidential election in which the exiled
Jammeh has urged his supporters to vote for an opposition coalition.
In all, 240-250 people died at the hands of the state or its agents, the
commission said. It recommended that the “persons who bear the greatest
responsibility for abuses <to be prosecuted, but did not name anyone. To
forgive and forget with impunity the violations and abuses … would not
only undermine reconciliation but would also constitute a massive and
egregious cover-up of the crimes committed,> the TRRC said in a
statement.
The findings of the panel come after more than two years of hearings
into Jammeh-era crimes. Nearly 400 witnesses gave chilling evidence
about state-sanctioned torture, death squads, rape and <witch hunts>,
often at the hands of the <Junglers>, as Jammeh’s death squads were
known.
<I assure (the victims and their families) that my government will
ensure that justice is done,> Barrow said in a statement, <but I urge
them to be patient and allow the legal process to take its course.>
Malick Jatta, an army lieutenant close to Jammeh, said the former
president paid more than $1,000 each to members of his security service
who killed newspaper editor Deyda Hydara in 2004, according to the
Reuters news agency. Sergeant Omar Jallow told the commission that in
2005, Jammeh ordered the killing of 59 unarmed migrants that Jammeh
thought had come to overthrow him. Fatou Jallow, the winner of a 2014
beauty pageant, testified that Jammeh raped her when she was 19.
Jammeh, who fled to Equatorial Guinea after refusing to accept defeat to
Barrow in a 2016 election, has previously denied allegations of
wrongdoing.
<There is this will among human rights lawyers to see Yahya Jammeh, who
is now free and living in exile in Equatorial Guinea, to face justice
for those crimes committed under his rule,> said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas
Haque, who has reported extensively from The Gambia.
<There is more freedom for people to express themselves than during the
time of Jammeh, but there is a sense that people now want to go further
than just expressing their grievances – they wanna see the rule of law
being enacted and justice being served.>
Barrow or his successor will have six months to decide how to respond to
the report. It could form the basis for criminal proceedings against
Jammeh and others.
Even if Jammeh is found guilty, he may not face punishment. Under
Gambian law, a former head of state cannot be prosecuted unless
parliament approves proceedings by a two-thirds majority.
Rights groups, which were eagerly awaiting the report, welcomed the news
that the TRRC has urged prosecutions.
Reed Brody, a human rights lawyer who works with Jammeh-era victims,
said in a statement that <there is no doubt that Yahya Jammeh is at the
top of the list of former officials whose prosecutions it is
recommending.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/25/gambian-commission-urges-persecutions-for-jammeh-era-abuses
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Tanzania to allow students to attend school after giving birth.
Government reverses controversial 2017 policy instituted by the
country’s late leader, John Magufuli.
The Tanzanian government has said it will allow teenage mothers to
continue with their studies after giving birth, reversing a heavily
criticised policy implemented by late former President John Magufuli.
Human rights campaigners accused Tanzania of discrimination after
Magufuli in 2017 endorsed the expulsion of pregnant girls from state
schools and their prevention from returning to class after giving birth
– a policy dating back to 1961.
Following Magufuli’s death earlier this year, his successor Samia Suluhu
Hassan has sought to break away from some of his policies. On Wednesday,
Education Minister Joyce Ndalichako said that <pregnant school girls
will be allowed to continue with formal education after delivery>.
<I will issue a circular later today. No time to wait,> she said at a
ceremony in the capital, Dodoma.
Magufuli had pledged that no student who became pregnant would finish
their studies under his watch, saying it was immoral for young girls to
be sexually active.
<I give money for a student to study for free. And then, she gets
pregnant, gives birth and after that, returns to school. No, not under
my mandate,> he said in mid-2017. The decision was widely criticised by
human rights groups and international donors, who cut their funding to
the country in response to Magufuli’s policies.
At the time, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report saying school
officials in Tanzania were conducting pregnancy tests in order to expel
pregnant students, depriving them of their right to an education.
World Bank froze a $300m loan for girls’ education in protest against
the ban. According to the institution, more than 120,000 girls drop out
of school annually in Tanzania, 6,500 of whom were due to pregnancy or
having children.
<This important decision underscores the country’s commitment to support
girls and young women and improve their chances at receiving a better
education,> the World Bank said in a statement later on Wednesday.
Sweden, which also cut its funding to Tanzania last year citing
shrinking freedoms, hailed the move.
<This is a welcome step for many girls, allowing them to unlock their
full potential,> the Swedish embassy in Dar es Salaam said on Twitter.
Opposition party Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT Wazalendo)
said their push to reverse the policy had paid off.
<We did it! A clear example of one struggle, many fronts. Everyone who
was involved did something towards this achievement,> said ACT Wazalendo
leader Zitto Kabwe.
Magufuli, a COVID-sceptic, died of a heart condition on March 17 after a
mysterious three-week absence. His political opponents insisted he had
coronavirus.
In the weeks after her swearing-in, his successor Hassan reached out to
Tanzania’s political opposition, promising to defend democracy and basic
freedoms, and reopening banned media outlets.
But hopes that Hassan would usher in a new era were dented by the arrest
of a high-profile opposition leader on terror charges and a crackdown on
independent newspapers.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/24/tanzania-allow-students-attend-school-after-giving-birth
Read here a follow-up article of Al Jazeera - 27 Nov 2021
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/27/activists-hail-tanzania-move-to-lift-ban-on-pregnant-schoolgirls
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Sweden’s parliament elects Magdalena Andersson as first female PM.
Leader of the Social Democrat party confirmed as outgoing Prime Minister
Stefan Lofven’s successor.
Sweden’s parliament has confirmed Social Democrat leader Magdalena
Andersson as the country’s first female prime minister.
The 54-year-old, who took over as head of the governing Social Democrat
party earlier this month, was elected as outgoing leader Stefan Lofven’s
successor during a confirmation vote in parliament on Wednesday.
A total of 117 members of parliament voted for her, while 174 voted
against her. Fifty-seven abstained. Under Sweden’s system, a prime
ministerial candidate does not need the support of a majority in
parliament, they just need to not have a majority against them.
Andersson, who currently serves as Sweden’s finance minister, will
formally take over as prime minister following a meeting with King Carl
XVI Gustaf on Friday. Despite being a nation that has long championed
gender equality, Sweden has never had a woman as prime minister.
All other Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland – have
seen women lead their governments.
Left Party deal
Andersson’s appointment came after she clinched a last-minute deal with
the Left Party on Tuesday, securing key support in exchange for a pledge
to raise pensions.
<We have reached an agreement to strengthen the finances of the poorest
pensioners,> Andersson told public broadcaster SVT after the agreement
was announced.
Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar also confirmed the deal. <We’re not
going to block Andersson,> she told Swedish Radio.
Andersson had already received the support of the Greens, the Social
Democrats’ coalition partner in government.
The Centre Party had said it would not block her from taking over
following Lofven’s decision to step down earlier this month and risk
allowing an alternative right-wing government to emerge.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/24/swedens-parliament-elects-magdalena-andersson-as-first-female-pm
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Sweden’s first female PM resigns hours after appointment.
Magdalena Andersson, the first female prime minister in Swedish history,
quits hours after taking the role.
Sweden’s first female prime minister, Social Democrat Magdalena
Andersson, has resigned after less than 12 hours in the top job after
the Green Party quit their two-party coalition, stoking political
uncertainty.
But Andersson said she had told the speaker of parliament she hoped to
be appointed prime minister again as the head of a single-party
government.
The Green Party quit after parliament rejected the coalition’s budget
bill.
<I have asked the speaker to be relieved of my duties as prime
minister,> Andersson told a news conference. <I am ready to be prime
minister in a single-party, Social Democrat government.>
The Green Party said it would support her in any new confirmation vote
in parliament, while the Centre Party promised to abstain, which in
practice amounts to the same as backing her candidacy. The Left Party
has also said it would back her.
Budget voted down
The government’s own budget proposal was rejected in favour of one
presented by the opposition that includes the right-wing populist Sweden
Democrats. Sweden’s third largest party is rooted in a neo-Nazi movement.
The vote was 154-143 in favour of the opposition’s budget proposal.
Speaker Andreas Norlen said he will contact Sweden’s eight party leaders
<to discuss the situation>. On Thursday, he will announce the next steps
for the 349-seat parliament.
Andersson said that <a coalition government should resign if a party
chooses to leave the government. Despite the fact that the parliamentary
situation is unchanged, it needs to be tried again.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/24/swedens-first-female-prime-minister-resigns-hours-later
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Biden to nominate Shalanda Young to lead key White House office.
Young would be first Black woman in US history to hold the powerful
White House budget and policy post.
United States President Joe Biden has announced he will nominate
Shalanda Young to lead the White House’s Office of Management and
Budget, an influential post that sets policies across the US government.
Young has been serving as the acting director of OMB for eight months.
She would be the first Black woman to serve in the position once
confirmed by the US Senate.
Young <will not only be a tremendously qualified director, she will also
be an historic director,> Biden said in a prepared video released by the
White House on Wednesday. Young’s appointment comes as Biden’s Democrats,
who hold a narrow majority in Congress, face a deadline to pass new
legislation providing funding for government agencies.
Part of the executive branch, OMB, which administers the federal budget,
will play a key role in the implementation of Biden’s $1.2 trillion
infrastructure spending plan and his Build Back Better proposal for
$1.75 trillion in social and clean energy spending.
Young had previously served as a staff director to Democrats on the
Appropriations Committee of the US House of Representatives, which
writes all spending legislation. Young was confirmed as deputy director
of OMB by a bipartisan Senate vote 63-37 on March 23. Biden said he and
congressional leaders had been <impressed> by Young in her handling of
the job as acting director.
Young became acting OMB director when Biden’s first nominee, Neera
Tanden, faced opposition in the Senate for her previous work as a
Democratic partisan.
Tanden had been a top aide to Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and
secretary of state, and a policy director in the administration of
former President Barack Obama. After the Senate declined to confirm
Tanden as OMB director, Biden named her as a senior adviser, part of his
White House inner circle, which did not require Senate confirmation.
Biden said on Wednesday he will name Nani Coloretti to be deputy
director of OMB to replace Young in that role. Coloretti is at present a
senior vice president at the Urban Institute, a non-governmental
organisation advocating policies to promote US cities. A
Filipino-American, Coloretti had previously served in management roles
at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Treasury in the
Obama administration.
Fulfilling a 2020 campaign pledge, Biden has prioritised appointing
women and minorities to key administration positions. Biden on Wednesday
called Young and Coloretti <two extraordinary, history-making women>.
Meanwhile, Congress faces a December 3 deadline to renew funding for the
US government, or federal agencies will be forced to suspend operations.
The US faces a second critical deadline in December when the Treasury
Department’s authority to borrow in financial markets expires if
Congress does not act to extend it.>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Sweden’s parliament elects Magdalena Andersson as first female
PM.
Leader of the Social Democrat party confirmed as outgoing Prime
Minister Stefan Lofven’s successor.
Sweden’s parliament has confirmed Social Democrat leader
Magdalena Andersson as the country’s first female prime minister.
The 54-year-old, who took over as head of the governing Social
Democrat party earlier this month, was elected as outgoing leader Stefan
Lofven’s successor during a confirmation vote in parliament on Wednesday.
A total of 117 members of parliament voted for her, while 174
voted against her. Fifty-seven abstained. Under Sweden’s system, a prime
ministerial candidate does not need the support of a majority in
parliament, they just need to not have a majority against them.
Andersson, who currently serves as Sweden’s finance minister,
will formally take over as prime minister following a meeting with King
Carl XVI Gustaf on Friday. Despite being a nation that has long
championed gender equality, Sweden has never had a woman as prime
minister.
All other Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland
– have seen women lead their governments.
Left Party deal
Andersson’s appointment came after she clinched a last-minute
deal with the Left Party on Tuesday, securing key support in exchange
for a pledge to raise pensions.
<We have reached an agreement to strengthen the finances of the
poorest pensioners,> Andersson told public broadcaster SVT after the
agreement was announced.
Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar also confirmed the deal. <We’re
not going to block Andersson,> she told Swedish Radio.
Andersson had already received the support of the Greens, the
Social Democrats’ coalition partner in government.
The Centre Party had said it would not block her from taking over
following Lofven’s decision to step down earlier this month and risk
allowing an alternative right-wing government to emerge.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/24/swedens-parliament-elects-magdalena-andersson-as-first-female-pm
Al Jazeera
24 Nov 2021
<<Biden to nominate Shalanda Young to lead key White House
office.
Young would be first Black woman in US history to hold the
powerful White House budget and policy post.
United States President Joe Biden has announced he will nominate
Shalanda Young to lead the White House’s Office of Management and
Budget, an influential post that sets policies across the US government.
Young has been serving as the acting director of OMB for eight months.
She would be the first Black woman to serve in the position once
confirmed by the US Senate.
Young <will not only be a tremendously qualified director, she
will also be an historic director,> Biden said in a prepared video
released by the White House on Wednesday. Young’s appointment comes as
Biden’s Democrats, who hold a narrow majority in Congress, face a
deadline to pass new legislation providing funding for government
agencies.
Part of the executive branch, OMB, which administers the federal
budget, will play a key role in the implementation of Biden’s $1.2
trillion infrastructure spending plan and his Build Back Better proposal
for $1.75 trillion in social and clean energy spending.
Young had previously served as a staff director to Democrats on
the Appropriations Committee of the US House of Representatives, which
writes all spending legislation. Young was confirmed as deputy director
of OMB by a bipartisan Senate vote 63-37 on March 23. Biden said he and
congressional leaders had been <impressed> by Young in her handling of
the job as acting director.
Young became acting OMB director when Biden’s first nominee,
Neera Tanden, faced opposition in the Senate for her previous work as a
Democratic partisan.
Tanden had been a top aide to Hillary Clinton, the former first
lady and secretary of state, and a policy director in the administration
of former President Barack Obama. After the Senate declined to confirm
Tanden as OMB director, Biden named her as a senior adviser, part of his
White House inner circle, which did not require Senate confirmation.
Biden said on Wednesday he will name Nani Coloretti to be deputy
director of OMB to replace Young in that role. Coloretti is at present a
senior vice president at the Urban Institute, a non-governmental
organisation advocating policies to promote US cities. A
Filipino-American, Coloretti had previously served in management roles
at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Treasury in the
Obama administration.
Fulfilling a 2020 campaign pledge, Biden has prioritised
appointing women and minorities to key administration positions. Biden
on Wednesday called Young and Coloretti <two extraordinary,
history-making women>.
Meanwhile, Congress faces a December 3 deadline to renew funding
for the US government, or federal agencies will be forced to suspend
operations. The US faces a second critical deadline in December when the
Treasury Department’s authority to borrow in financial markets expires
if Congress does not act to extend it.>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Al Jazeera
By Shazia Khan
23 Nov 2021
<<Dreaming of escape: The Pakistani women fleeing domestic
violence.
Pakistani women who fled abusive relationships share the dreams
that inspired them to leave.
When my mother was two years old, she was given as a <gift-child>
to a wealthy widowed aunt who did not have any children of her own.
Three years later, her birth mother, who was just 26 at the time, died
of leukaemia. My mother rarely saw her siblings or father, who
eventually remarried, and – looking back now at my own upbringing in
Odense, Denmark, I can trace the trauma I absorbed from my mother back
to her own childhood.
But, as a child, I did not know why my mother was so cold and
strict; why she never showed me any love or warmth. I did not know about
her childhood or the feelings of loss and rejection she carried with her
and passed on to me. I did not know any of this because feelings were
not something we shared or discussed in my family. In fact, the only
emotions my mother seemed capable of expressing were anger and sadness.
As a teenager, I rebelled against this, as I rebelled against so
many of my family’s plans and expectations – the Quran lessons, the
restrictions on my freedom, but none more so than my father’s plan to
move us all to Pakistan, the country both he and my mother were from.
He had built a large house there that he intended for us all to
live in with his ailing mother. Instead, aged 15, I ran away. At first,
I stayed with a friend, before making my way to Copenhagen. After a few
weeks in the capital, I moved into Freetown Christiania, a commune that
was established by squatters on the site of a former military barracks
in 1971. The year I spent there in 1991, changed my life forever.
I met artists and activists, people who looked out for me and
helped me whenever I needed it, and a photographer who introduced me to
what would become my profession.
During this time, I also began to look back on my childhood and
understand that it had been shaped not only by the anger and guilt I had
been raised with but by the ways in which I had used dreams as a means
of escape from it. My dreams, which often involved me flying through the
sky like a bird, seeing places that felt safe and meeting people who
seemed loving and kind, had helped me to stay afloat and given me hope.
They had become my safe place. I remembered how my mother and her
friends had often interpreted their own dreams, believing they had seen
in them visions and predictions for their futures. In Islam, there is a
practice called <Istikhara>, in which someone will say a particular
prayer before sleeping when they have an important decision to make.
They consider their dreams to be a form of guidance from God, helping
them to make the right decision.
As I learned photography and spent countless hours in a darkroom,
seeing the images I had captured being revealed on paper, it felt like
watching dreams come to life.
I was drawn to taking photographs of the people I called the <unseen>
– those overlooked and living on the fringes of society. I photographed
homeless children and transgender people in Argentina, Indigenous people
in Bolivia and Columbia, residents of the favelas in Brazil. The most
important thing for me was always to see and capture people as they are
– so that their inner personality shines through their photographs.
As I travelled the world doing this, visiting places I had seen
in my childhood dreams, I realised that my dreams had become my reality.
It renewed my interest in dreams and the subconscious and I decided to
train as a psychotherapist, specialising in dream interpretation.
Just as I wanted my photographs to capture the truth of who
someone was, I wanted to establish a similar understanding of those I
worked with as a psychotherapist. I found it fascinating to learn how a
person’s trauma and dreams intersect and how, if treated right, dreams
can help someone heal.
It reminded me of a documentary I had watched about Pakistani
women who had endured domestic violence and sought refuge in a shelter.
The shelter called Dastak was located in a quiet neighbourhood of
Lahore and had been started by AGHS Legal Aid Cell in 1990, a legal aid
organisation co-founded by sisters Hina Jilani and the late Asma
Jahangir, both renowned human rights activists and lawyers.
It provides free temporary accommodation for women and their
children, as well as legal, financial and psychological support.
I was curious to know more about these women. So, in 2004, I
travelled to Lahore for three weeks to photograph some of the women at
Dastak, for a project with Amnesty International. It was my first visit
to Pakistan since I was five years old, and I was surprised at how
easily I could immerse myself in the culture and relate to the women at
Dastak.
For years I had distanced myself from my Pakistani roots, but
when I had my own children, it suddenly became important for me to
understand my culture and where I came from.
More importantly, I was keen to explore what I had been carrying
inside of me. As a psychotherapist and a young mother, I wanted to make
sure to not pass on any of my trauma to my children.
The photographs that I took of the Pakistani women during that
visit were displayed in an exhibition in cities across Denmark,
highlighting the abuse they had suffered. From the moment I first met
the women at Dastak, I had felt an instant connection with them.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/11/23/dreaming-of-escape-the-pakistani-women-fleeing-domestic-violence
The Guardian
by Amel Brahmi
23 Nov 2021
<<A quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosque.
While many have misinterpreted a hadith to mean women can’t enter
a mosque, these women are covering progressive topics like sexual
violence, abortion, pregnancy loss, domestic violence in their sermons.
When Tasneem Noor got on the stage at the Women’s Mosque of
America in Los Angeles, she felt butterflies in her stomach. Facing
about fifty women on praying rugs, ready to deliver a sermon – khutba in
Arabic – she took a deep breath.
During the prayers, the women would follow Noor’s lead, but
several would pray four more times after it ended, to make up for any
potentially invalid prayers. That is the result of a 14-century-old
disputed hadith that leads some to believe women are forbidden to lead
prayers and deliver sermons.
<I don’t mind,> Noor told me later. <Some people function better
with rules.>
Noor, 37, is part of a quiet revolution in America: at the all
women’s mosque, she was celebrating its five year anniversary of
practicing the female imamat, a rare and often controversial practice in
Islam. Women aren’t even allowed to pray in many mosques across the
world. In some mosques in the US, women may enter, but are often forced
pray in separate rooms – leading some to call it the <penalty box>.
Spiritual leaders who have pushed boundaries – by running mixed
congregation mosques or running an LGBTQ mosque – have received death
threats.
But at the Women’s Mosque of America, women are using their
sermons to cover previously untouched topics like sexual violence,
pregnancy loss and domestic violence.
One of Noor’s most memorable sermons happened in 2017 – a
surprise, considering it was largely an improvisation. After a
scheduling hitch left Noor with less than half of the 45-minutes she
should have had, she shortened her talk and changed tack: leading the
congregation in a meditation.
<She asked us to track our emotions in our bodies, and let them
run their course,> recalled Nourjahan Boulden, who was in the audience
that day. <I didn’t know it was even possible to own and control your
emotions like that, but it worked.>
Boulden had come to Noor’s sermon that day not knowing what she
would find. Before that sermon, she was haunted by a destructive guilt
she carried.
She grew up in California with a love for belly-dancing – a
practice inherited from her Baloch mother – but also hearing a lot of <if
you do this, you’ll burn in hell>. That belief took hold inside her, and
began to grow. Then, she was shot in the leg in a nightclub in Toronto
in 2006. Boulden, a college student at the time, overheard one of her
aunts say, <She was out dancing, what did she expect?>
Then, she had a miscarriage. The child was conceived out of
wedlock, with her Christian partner, and so the guilt grew again. She
got to a point where she believed her misfortunes resulted from not
conforming to religious traditions.
Noor offered Boulden another frame. <I didn’t tell her she was
wrong for feeling punished,> Noor said. <I helped her to look at it
differently and asked, ‘What else is true?’> Noor told her that God had
given her the talent of dancing and that it wasn’t a shameful practice,
like many thought. She told her that her intentions – what’s in her
heart – is what mattered. If she felt happiest belly dancing, , then
dancing was how she was meant to connect with God.
Boulden was in disbelief.
<You’re the guide I had been waiting for,> Boulden told her.
Noor was also in disbelief. She had never seen herself as someone
that people had been waiting for.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/nov/22/female-imam-california-mosque
Al Jazeera
22 Nov 2021
By Sara Cincurova
<<The devastating ways women suffer at the Poland-Belarus border.
Women refugees say they have miscarried, been separated from
their children by border guards, and been hospitalised.
Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect
identities
Sokolka, Poland – When 28-year-old Shirin*, an Iraqi Kurd,
crossed the border from Belarus into Poland with her seven-year-old son
Ali*, she did not expect to end up unconscious and immobile in the
freezing woods.
<Me and my son survived only by miracle,> Shirin told Al Jazeera
from a hospital in a Polish border town, a day after she was loaded into
an ambulance. Her body was covered in injuries and blisters from the
cold.
<I will never forget what I have seen in the woods,> she said. <I
have seen so many children and babies there. Their mothers were
screaming and praying for a miracle. The adults could barely survive, so
what chance do babies have? These images will be haunting me until I
die.>
Shirin fled the Kurdish region of Iraq with Ali, her only child,
and her husband Afran* on October 22.
But when Belarusian police saw them attempting to cross the
border into Poland, they intervened and pushed Afran back deeper into
Belarus, according to her testimony. Shirin crossed the border alone and
spent 21 days in the woods with Ali.
<My son was crying: ‘Please, my father, please, my father,’ but
we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. We ended up alone, freezing,
with no food.>
Shirin cried and shook as she told Al Jazeera her story. Both her
legs and one arm were bandaged. She was unable to walk.
She still does not know where her husband is.
‘I don’t know where she is’
Thousands of women and children have made attempts to reach the
European Union by entering Poland in recent weeks, as a migration crisis
that began in August escalates. Crowds of people are now stranded
between the border that separates Belarus and Poland. They travelled to
Minsk, the Belarusian capital, on a promise that they would be able to
breach the fence and enter the EU country.
Poland and its Western allies say Belarus encouraged people,
mostly from the Middle East, to the country in an attempt to push them
towards the border and destabilise Europe – an act of revenge for
Western sanctions on the administration of President Alexander
Lukashenko.
There is no official data about the numbers of people at the
Belarus-Poland border, but Agnieszka Kosowicz, head of the Polish
Migration Forum, an NGO supporting refugees and migrants in Poland, told
Al Jazeera that <2,666 women have applied for asylum in Poland this year
alone, out of a total of 6,697>. She said while women’s stories are
covered less often by the media than those of men, women represent a
significant percentage of the migrating population.
<We know for sure that women are present at the border based on
local volunteers’ everyday testimonies. Volunteers talk about women so
weak they cannot walk or attend to their children, about women who cry
over their children who are hungry, and women who mourn lost babies –
children they lost as a result of miscarriage, or literally lost their
children while walking in the forest at night,> she said.
Azin Govand*, a 27-year-old asylum seeker from the Iraqi Kurdish
region who is now in Minsk, has not seen her three-year-old daughter
Shewa* or her husband since Belarusian authorities allegedly separated
the family at the border. At the same time, Azin said the authorities
pushed her back into Belarus.
<I haven’t heard from my husband and daughter for more than seven
days,> Azin told Al Jazeera by phone, from a Belarusian number.
<I recently saw a picture of a baby girl dressed in the same
clothes as my daughter on social media. The girl was lying on the floor
near the border, face down,> she said. <It could have been my daughter.
I don’t know where she is.>
Kosowicz said several families have been split up at the border
or become separated in the forests. This includes, for example, when a
parent is taken to hospital while the children are left in the forests,
or people getting lost, or as people are pushed back by border officials
on both sides of the frontier. Amid the chaos, cases of miscarriage have
been documented. Other women have been found with young babies with
severe medical problems.
A one-year-old Syrian baby boy is believed to be the youngest
victim of the refugee crisis at the border. The cause of his reported
death has not yet been established. Nazanin*, an Iraqi Kurdish woman who
was recently rescued from the Polish woodlands near the Belarus border
after having spent a month there, told Al Jazeera that “only God saved
her [seven-month-old] baby from dying.”
She and her husband had fled Zakho, a region near the border with
Turkey and Syria, because they were exposed to shooting and shelling.
<The baby was freezing,> Nazanin said. <She was crying because of
the cold every night. We only had a T-shirt and one sweater for the
baby, no other clothes, and and no nappies,> she said.
<We were told the journey would be short, and ran out of food
quickly. We haven’t eaten for 10 days, and walked seven or eight
kilometres (four to five miles) without shoes,> she said, pointing to
her frostbitten feet.<During all that time, we had to drink dirty water
given to us by Belarusian guards, or water that we found in the swamps.
We were all sick.>
‘Horrific’ scene
Karol Wilczynski, director of the Salam Lab NGO working against
Islamophobia in Poland, who has been helping the stranded refugees, told
Al Jazeera that he has seen several women and babies in need.
<The most horrific and moving scene I have ever witnessed was
that of a 49-year old grandmother with her two-year-old granddaughter,>
Wilczynski said. <When we found them, the grandmother was unconscious
and had severe hypothermia – only 34 degrees (93.2F) of body temperature.
By some miracle, the baby survived.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/22/refugees-crossing-polish-border-recite-tales-of-horror
Al Jazeera
21 Nov 2021
<<Peng Shuai: Missing Chinese tennis star appears in Beijing.
World Tennis Association says new videos and pictures of Peng
Shuai are ‘insufficient’ and do not address its concerns about her
safety.
Chinese sports star Peng Shuai has attended a tennis tournament
in Beijing, according to official photos, amid mounting international
concern about her whereabouts after she accused a senior Chinese leader
of sexual assault.
China Open, which organised the tournament, published pictures of
Peng at the Fila Kids Junior Tennis Challenger Finals on Sunday.
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/21/peng-shuai-videos-photos-of-missing-chinese-star-posted-online
Opinion of Gino d'Artali
You may ask why my quote from the above article is so short? Well,
not because I and I'm sure the rest of the world is really getting not
only more and more upset and unrestfull by the dissapearance of Peng
Shuai but every word written i.e. published to get China to release her
is a well spent and necessary word on her behalf. So I'd say: Don't be a
coward China, release here!!
The Guardian
21 Nov 2021
By Sonia Sodha
<<Opinion
Sex work
Selling sex is highly dangerous. Treating it like a regular job
only makes it worse.
Last Monday, James Martin was sentenced to four and a half years
in jail for killing Stella Frew. They had argued in his van, then he
accelerated away with her hanging off its side, eventually running Frew
over, causing her catastrophic injuries. Martin sped away with her
handbag in the van, which he later dumped. The cause of their
altercation? Martin refused to pay her for the sex act she had just
performed on him. Like many women who sell sex, Frew struggled with drug
and alcohol addiction and was under their influence when she approached
Martin. Her daughter described her for the court as the <kindest, most
warm-hearted woman> who had been abused and hurt by men her whole life.
The judge commented that Martin had shown barely any empathy for his
victim.
And so it has always been. Prostitution is laced with mortal
peril: women who sell sex are 18 times more likely to be murdered than
women who don’t, according to one study. Yet these women have throughout
history been cast as second-class citizens, not worthy of the same
concern as other victims.
How best to prevent violence against those selling sex, the vast
majority of whom are women, is a question that has long divided
feminists. For some, it is about decriminalising the selling and buying
of sex, which in England and Wales would mean dropping criminal offences
such as kerb crawling, soliciting and running a brothel. There will
always be prostitution, so the argument goes, so best to keep it out in
the open. Others agree that the selling of sex should be decriminalised
in all circumstances and think women should be provided with ample
support to get out of prostitution, but argue that the buying of sex, an
almost exclusively male activity, should always be a crime.
The full decriminalisation argument is driven by a belief that it
is possible to sufficiently strengthen the agency of those who sell sex
to transform it into <sex work>, like any other job. You can see what
makes it an appealing frame, powered by an archetype that has evolved
from the Pretty Woman male saviour narrative, to the sex-positive woman
sticking two fingers up at a socially conservative society by making
bags of money doing something she loves. Sex work is a choice that
should be respected and we should destigmatise it by decriminalising the
men who buy it and regulate it to make it safer. Women railing against
this are depicted as prudes constrained by their own squeamishness about
sex.
There are two reality checks that bring these theoretical
arguments crashing down to earth. The first is that for every woman or
man selling sex who regards it as a positive choice, and there are some,
there are many more who have been trafficked or exploited and are
effectively enslaved to criminal networks, working for a pittance, or
for drugs to forget the trauma of being forced into selling yourself to
be penetrated again and again, or for nothing at all. In one
investigation into sex trafficking, Leicestershire police reported that
86% of the women in brothels they visited were Romanian; in Northumbria,
it was 75%. Numerous studies have shown just how dangerous prostitution
is: a majority of women selling sex have experienced severe and repeated
violence, with more than two-thirds suffering from PTSD at levels
comparable to war vetera ns. Women who are actually or effectively being
forced into selling sex have little voice in policy debates, although
there are prominent survivor networks that argue for abolition.
Second, as the feminist campaigner Julie Bindel exposed in her
2017 book The Pimping of Prostitution, decriminalisation and regulation
has not been the success its advocates claim. Bindel visited and
interviewed women working in legal brothels in the Netherlands, Germany,
Nevada, New Zealand and Australia and found exploitation to be rife,
with legalisation acting to empower brothel owners. In one Las Vegas
brothel, women weren’t allowed out unaccompanied or without their
manager’s permission. In a German brothel, women had to service six men
a day at the minimum rate just to make back the room rent. In a New
Zealand brothel, women said men could simply complain to the manager and
get their money back, leaving them with nothing.
Decriminalisation increases the overall extent of prostitution in
a country without decreasing its harms or delivering any of the promised
benefits of regulation. In New Zealand, Bindel revealed there were only
11 brothel health and safety inspections over a 12-year period. And
decriminalisation makes it even harder for the police to combat
trafficking; Spanish police describe how difficult it is to investigate
when they enter a brothel and clearly frightened and distressed young
women tell them they are working there by choice.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/21/selling-sex-is-highly-dangerous-treating-it-like-a-regular-job-only-makes-it-worse
The Guardian
20 Nov 2021
Mathew Weaver
<<Mother of victim of morgue rapist calls for hospital boss to
resign.
Nevres Kemal demands Miles Scott quits as chief executive of
Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS trust.
The mother of one of the victims of the morgue rapist, David
Fuller, is campaigning for the boss of the hospital where Fuller
serially abused corpses undetected for 12 years to resign. The body of
Azra Kemal was raped three times in July 2020 in the morgue of Tunbridge
Wells hospital by Fuller, a hospital electrician, who is known to have
violated at least 100 corpses between 2008 and 2010.
Nevres Kemal, a key whistleblower in the Baby P scandal in
Haringey in 2007, is furious about what happened to her daughter and is
demanding the resignation of Miles Scott, the chief executive of
Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS trust. <Scott needs to go,> she said. <That
man must not wait to be thrown out, he needs to walk.>
At a meeting she had with Scott, she says he admitted that he was
responsible for what goes on at the trust – an account supported by
another hospital official present. She said: <Accountability starts with
the man at the top. He is responsible, but he doesn’t want to lose his
fancy job.>
Last week, the government bowed to calls by Kemal and others to
hold a public inquiry into what went wrong, and replaced an internal
inquiry by the trust with an independent inquiry, chaired by Sir
Jonathan Michael.
Kemal said: <They were pushed into holding a public inquiry – how
can an organisation investigate itself over something that is so
horrendous?>
She said the issues involved were relatively straightforward. <I
want to know how on Earth they could let it happen, but there’s a simple
answer – they didn’t check security. Why aren’t the dead afforded proper
security that is checked? He [Fuller] went into the morgue thousands of
times – that obviously should have raised alarms.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/20/mother-of-victim-of-morgue-rapist-calls-for-hospital-boss-to-resign-david-fuller
The Guardian
Agence France-Press
20 Nov 2021
<<UN urges China to free seriously ill journalist jailed over
Wuhan Covid reporting.
Citizen reporter Zhang Zhan, who is on a hunger strike, was
imprisoned after questioning authorities’ handling of outbreak in city.
The United Nations has urged China to release a citizen
journalist jailed for her coverage of the country’s Covid-19 response
and who her family say is close to death after a hunger strike. The UN
rights office voiced alarm at reports that 38-year-old Zhang Zhan’s
health was deteriorating rapidly and that her life was at serious risk
from the hunger strike.
<We call on the Chinese authorities to consider Zhang’s immediate
and unconditional release, at the very least, on humanitarian grounds,
and to make urgent life-saving medical care available, respecting both
her will and her dignity,> UN spokeswoman Marta Hurtado said.
Zhang, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to
report on the chaos at the pandemic’s epicentre, questioning the
authorities’ handling of the outbreak in her smartphone videos. She was
detained in May 2020 and sentenced in December to four years in jail for
<picking quarrels and provoking trouble> – a charge routinely used to
suppress dissent. She has conducted several hunger strikes to protest
against her conviction, sentencing and imprisonment, and her family
recently warned that she had become severely underweight and “may not
live for much longer”.
Hurtado said the UN rights office had repeatedly raised concerns
over Zhang’s case with the Chinese authorities since her arrest last
year.
It had sought <clarification on the criminal proceedings taken
against her as a consequence of what appear to have been her legitimate
journalistic activities>, Hurtado said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/20/un-urges-china-to-free-seriously-ill-journalist-jailed-over-wuhan-covid-reporting
The Guardian
20 Nov 2021
<<The Week in Patriarchy
Sexual harassment
Women still have to worry speaking up about abuse will cost them
their lives
Arwa Mahdawi
Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s story is a chilling reminder
when women speak up about sexual misconduct they tend to be punished for
it.
Peng Shuai and the dangers of speaking up about powerful men
Earlier this month the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai posted a
statement on the social media site Weibo accusing Zhang Gaoli, a former
vice-premier, of sexual assault. Peng’s post acknowledged that she
didn’t have evidence to back up her accusations against the powerful
former politician, but she was determined not to stay silent. <Like an
egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction,
I’ll tell the truth about you,> Peng wrote.
Less than half an hour after the post went up, it disappeared.
Searches for Peng’s name seemed to have been blocked, as were searches
related to <tennis>, and her Weibo account was hidden from searches.
Then Peng herself disappeared. The former doubles world No 1 hasn’t been
heard from in more than two weeks. While there has been growing
international concern about Peng’s wellbeing, Chinese media have stayed
silent on the matter. The only formal mention of the tennis star was a
Twitter post by the state-run English language broadcaster, CGTN,
screenshotting a supposed email from Peng in which she says she’s
totally fine (just chilling at home!) and the allegation of sexual
assault she’d made wasn’t true. Weirdly, people weren’t convinced. I
don’t know what has happened to Peng, but she is clearly not just
chilling at home.
Peng’s circumstances may be extreme, but they are by no means
unusual. When women speak up about sexual misconduct they tend to be
punished for it. Speak up about sexual harassment at work and you may
find your career suddenly starts to stall. You may find yourself being
ostracized; being branded a troublemaker; threatened with the terms of
draconian NDAs. Speak out about sexual misconduct at your university and
you may find yourself being treated like you’re the one who did
something wrong. You may get quizzed about how much you drank, what you
were wearing, how many sexual partners you had. Speak out about the
popular kid in your town? Your house might get burned down.
That last example isn’t hypothetical – it’s what happened to
Daisy Coleman. In 2012 14-year-old Coleman and her 13-year-old best
friend Paige Parkhurst were assaulted at a party. After they accused the
high school football star both girls were subjected to horrific bullying
and harassment. The Colemans had their house burnt down, and mutilated
dead rabbits were put in Parkhurst’s car. Daisy’s mother was fired from
her job and the family ended up leaving town. Daisy died of suicide last
year. Her mother took her own life four months later.
Women who speak up about popular or powerful men will almost
inevitably find their histories being scrutinized, their reputations
sullied, and their lives torn apart. If you think I’m being dramatic
here then just remember what happened to Harvey Weinstein’s accusers.
Weinstein allegedly hired an <army of spies> to intimidate his accusers
and stop women from going public with sexual misconduct claims. After
the New Yorker published a report
about Weinstein’s use of spies, the actor Asia Argento wrote on
Twitter: “Why didn’t I, @rosemcgowan, @RoArquette [Rosanna Arquette] @AnnabellSciorra
spoke [sic] up earlier? We were followed by ex-Mossad agents. Isn’t that
terrifying? Very.”
I could fill pages and pages with examples of women who have been
subject to abuse and harassment after speaking out about sexual
misconduct. And those examples, of course, are just the tip of the
iceberg. Many victims don’t speak out because they know there is a very
good chance they’ll be accused of lying; they know they risk their lives
turned upside down. <Like … a moth to the flame, courting
self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you,> Peng wrote. She knew
what was going to happen to her and she spoke up anyway. Her story is a
chilling reminder of how women still have to worry that speaking up
about their abusers will cost them their lives or their livelihood. And
yet you still find men complaining that <#MeToo has gone too far.> Tell
that to Peng, why don’t you?> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/20/women-abuse-speaking-up-peng-shuai-sexual-assault
Al Jazeera
19 Nov 2021
<<Sexual Assault
Philippine church founder charged with sex trafficking of women.
Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, an ally of President Duterte, charged
for sexually assaulting girls and women, according to US justice
department.
<<The founder of a Philippines church trafficked girls and young
women and forced them to have sex with him on pain of eternal damnation,
the US Justice Department has charged. Cash raised for a bogus
California-based charity was used to recruit victims who would be
brought to the United States from the Philippines to work in a church
called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name (KOJC),
the department said on Friday as it indicted the founder.
Some would be put to work raising more cash to help fund a lavish
lifestyle for Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, an ally of Philippines President
Rodrigo Duterte.
The 71-year-old, referred to by church members as <The Appointed
Son of God>, along with two co-defendants is now charged with
sex-trafficking of females aged 12 to 25 years to work as personal
assistants, or <pastorals,> for Quiboloy, a wide-ranging indictment says.
“The victims prepared Quiboloy’s meals, cleaned his residences,
gave him massages and were required to have sex with Quiboloy in what
the pastorals called ‘night duty’,” the department said in a press
release.
<Defendant Quiboloy and other KOJC administrators coerced
pastorals into performing ‘night duty’ – that is, sex – with defendant
Quiboloy under the threat of physical and verbal abuse and eternal
damnation.>
The indictment alleges the sex trafficking scheme ran for at
least 16 years until 2018.
A total of nine defendants
Victims who complied were rewarded with <good food, luxurious
hotel rooms, trips to tourist spots, and yearly cash payments that were
based on performance,> paid for with money solicited by KOJC workers in
the United States, according to the indictment. The indictment builds on
a previous indictment to include a total of nine defendants. Three were
arrested in the US on Thursday.
Quiboloy, who maintained large residences in Hawaii, Las Vegas,
and a swanky suburb of Los Angeles, is thought to be in Davao City, in
the Philippines, along with two others named in the charge, the Justice
Department said.
The church claims to have accumulated six million members in 200
countries since it was founded by Quiboloy in 1985, according to its
website.
Duterte appears in photos posted on Quiboloy’s official Facebook
page in October, captioned: <President Rodrigo Duterte in a private
dinner with close friend and spiritual adviser Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy.>
Presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles declined to comment on
Duterte’s <personal relationship> with Quiboloy.>>
SOURCE: AFP
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/19/philippine-churchman-extorted-sex-with-threats-of-damnation-us
Al Jazeera
19 Nov 2021
By Katia Porzecanski
<<Lawsuit says Tesla subjects women to ‘rampant sexual harassment’.
Former Tesla employee claims she experienced ‘nightmarish’ sexual
harassment conditions and that managers failed to act on her complaints.
Tesla Inc.’s female employees face <rampant sexual harassment,>
according to a lawsuit by a woman who works in the electric carmaker’s
Fremont, California, factory.
Jessica Barraza, 38, said in a complaint filed Thursday in state
court in Oakland that she experienced <nightmarish> conditions as a
night-shift worker at Tesla, with co-workers and supervisors making lewd
comments and gestures to her and other women multiple times a week. When
she complained to supervisors and human resources, they failed to take
action, Barraza says.
She suffers from panic attacks as a result of three years of such
behavior and <is afraid to return to work knowing that her body could be
violated at any time with no repercussions,> the complaint says. <She is
on medication and in therapy, and she is not the same person she used to
be.>
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Barraza’s suit was reported earlier by The Washington Post.
The case comes as Tesla is already facing a staggering $137
million verdict in favor of another worker who said he experienced
pervasive racism at the Fremont factory. Tesla is now appealing that
award.
A juror in that case told Bloomberg News that the panel hoped to
prod Tesla executives to <take the most basic preventative measures and
precautions they neglected to take as a large corporation to protect any
employee within their factory.>
Tesla has been dogged by allegations of discrimination at its
Fremont plant for years, but most employees are bound by arbitration
agreements that keep most complaints confidential.
In 2020, 31 complaints were filed with California’s Department of
Fair Employment and Housing alleging discrimination at Tesla on the
basis of race, age, gender expression, disability and pregnancy,
according to data obtained from public records. The state agency issued
right-to-sue letters in a majority of the cases; a handful were closed
with insufficient evidence.
The case is Barraza v. Tesla, 21-cv-2714, Superior Court of
California, Alameda County.
–With assistance from Chris Dolmetsch.>>
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG
The Guardian
19 Nov 2021
Moira Donegan
<<Part of the ‘great resignation’ is actually just mothers forced
to leave their jobs.
During the pandemic, women have exited the labor force at twice
the rate of men; their participation in the paid labor force is now the
lowest it has been in more than 30 years. They call it <the Great
Resignation>. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million
Americans quit their jobs in September. The analytics firm Visier puts
it in even starker terms, reporting that one in four workers quit in the
past year. Job separations initiated by employees – quits – have
exceeded pre-pandemic highs for six straight months. After the
insecurity of the pandemic and the mass layoffs in hard-hit industries,
many had predicted that the Covid crisis would yield more job retention
and sterner worker competition as people sought stability in an
uncertain time. Instead, employees are showing themselves more willing
than ever to quit or change their jobs. The result has been a labor
shortage, as employers struggle to find people to work and wages have
finally been forced up. In an unexpected twist, the dawn of the
post-pandemic era has brought with it a surprising moment of labor
power.
Most popular explanations for the Great Resignation focus on the
shifting sentiments of workers. <The pandemic was sort of a nationwide
awakening during a very stressful time,> Anthony Klotz, a psychologist
at Texas A&M who coined the term <Great Resignation>, told NPR. <Most
people were reflecting on their lives at the same time that work was
causing them burnout, or they were really enjoying working from home.>
But while the introspection occasioned by quarantine may have led
some workers to reassess their priorities and willingly change their
lives, such an explanation for the sudden disappearance of so many
people from the job market might be better explained by material
factors.
The fact of the matter is that when we speak of the Great
Resignation, we are really referring to a great resignation of women.
During the pandemic, women have exited the labor force at twice the rate
that men have; their participation in the paid labor force is now the
lowest it has been in more than 30 years. About one-third of all mothers
in the workforce have scaled back or left their jobs since March 2020.
That labor shortage? It’s being felt most acutely in sectors like
hospitality, retail and healthcare – industries where women make up a
majority of workers.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/19/great-resignation-mothers-forced-to-leave-jobs
The Guardian
19 Nov 2021
Helen Davidson in Taipei, Vincent Ni and Tumaini Carayol
<<Peng Shuai: UN calls on China to prove tennis star’s
whereabouts.
Women’s Tennis Association adds to pressure by saying it is
considering pulling its tournaments out of China.
The UN has called on Chinese authorities to give proof of the
whereabouts of tennis star Peng Shuai, as the Women’s Tennis Association
said it was prepared to pull its tournaments out of China over the
matter. Peng, a former doubles world No 1, has not been seen in public
since she accused the former high-ranking official Zhang Gaoli of sexual
assault on 2 November.
<It would be important to have proof of her whereabouts and
wellbeing and we would urge that there be an investigation with full
transparency into her allegations of sexual assault,> Liz Throssell, a
spokesperson for UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, said in Geneva on
Friday.
Shortly after the UN call, photos purporting to show the tennis
player were released by a Chinese state-affiliated journalist. Shen
Shiwei revealed a set of photos, which he said were posted on Peng’s
WeChat social media account on Friday. <Her friend shared the three
photos and the screenshot of Peng’s WeChat moments,> the journalist
wrote on Twitter. But analysts debated the authenticity of the images.
Shen has been employed by China Global Television Network, the
same state media network that published the email they claim was sent by
Peng to the WTA.
The release of the images follows mounting concern for Peng’s
wellbeing. On Friday, the Women’s Tennis Association said it was
prepared to pull its tournaments out of China if there was not an
adequate response to her sexual assault allegation against the former
senior Chinese politician.
Andrea Gaudenzi, the executive chairman of the Association of
Tennis Professionals, which governs men’s tennis, released a second
statement further stressing concern about Peng’s welfare: <Developments
in recent days in the case of Peng Shuai are deeply unsettling,> he said.
<This issue is bigger than tennis, as shown by the outpouring of concern
within and beyond our sport. Her safety is our most immediate concern
and clarity is required on the situation. The need for verifiable direct
communication with her is vital.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/19/peng-shuai-wta-prepared-to-pull-out-of-china-over-tennis-stars-disappearance
Al Jazeera
By Umar Farooq
18 Nov 2021
<<Istanbul, Turkey – Every year, men in Turkey murder hundreds of
women, and trending hashtags on social media and protests on the street
have become sadly familiar. This month, a particularly brazen killing
has triggered a massive outcry over what women’s rights activists say is
the government’s failure to prevent gender-based violence.
Activists say that by withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention, a
2011 landmark agreement of the Council of Europe outlining how to ensure
the safety of women, Turkey has given up on a roadmap it was the first
country to endorse.
On November 9, Basak Cengiz was walking down a street in
Istanbul’s Atasehir district when a man wielding a samurai sword walked
up behind her, and without saying a word, began to stab her repeatedly,
continuing after she fell to the sidewalk and died. Cengiz, 28, was a
promising architect who had moved from Ankara to Istanbul to pursue her
career and had recently become engaged to be married.
The suspected killer, when questioned by police about why he
killed Cengiz, said he was simply out to kill someone. <I went out and
picked a woman because I thought it would be easier,> he said.
In the days since the murder, a succession of political leaders,
including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have paid visits to the Cengiz
family to offer their condolences. Officials have promised justice, but
for Erdogan’s critics, the government is partly to blame for such
violence.
<Cengiz was killed because regulations protecting women are not
implemented adequately in Turkey, because killing women is easy in
Turkey,> Gulsum Kav, co-founder of the We Will Stop Femicide platform,
told Al Jazeera.
Founded in 2010, the platform tracks the murders of women and its
volunteers run a 24/7 hotline, organise meetings and protests, and
attend court hearings to monitor how prosecutions of gender-based
murders are carried out.
So far in 2021, men in Turkey have killed 285 women, according to
the platform – on course to exceed the 300 who were killed in 2020. In
cases where a motive and suspect were identified, the group found that
in most cases, husbands were killing their wives, in their homes. Kav
said calls to the platform’s hotline have increased threefold since the
pandemic started.
<Turkey is unfortunately not becoming a country where the
violence problem is solved, it is becoming a country where murders are
increasing,> said Kav. <The primary reason is that women are not
adequately protected, and also I believe the withdrawal from the
protective (Istanbul) convention.>
President Erdogan has lambasted feminist groups in the country
for continuing to bring up the Istanbul Convention, saying his
government already has laws in place that offer protection.
<Our government is very, very sensitive in terms of violence
against women,> Erdogan said in Ankara on November 17. <We have
completely removed the Istanbul Convention from our agenda because we
already have the steps to be taken in this agreement in our own laws on
the agenda.>
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, have pledged to make rejoining the
agreement one of the first steps their government would take if voted
into power.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/18/turkey-femicide-istanbul-convention-womens-rights
27 oct 2021
By Chisom Peter Job
<<Women's Rights
‘Letting women decide’: Activists hail Benin abortion vote
Before October 20, abortion was allowed only in specific
circumstances; but now, Benin has legalised the practice with the aim of
ending unsafe practices.
Littoral, Benin – One afternoon in September 2018, Fatima Ismail
found out she was pregnant after a friend told her to do a test. Aged 21
and fearful of what people would think, Ismail decided to get an
abortion. <It’s simple, I wasn’t ready for a child, and the father
wasn’t either,> she recalled. <I went to the hospital for another test,
and after the doctor confirmed that I indeed was pregnant, I asked ‘for
a second option’.>
The doctor at the hospital in Benin’s port city of Cotonou
immediately understood what she meant and shook his head. <He told me
abortion wasn’t an option because he could lose his licence as it was
illegal,> Ismail said.
Although there is no official data on unwanted pregnancies in
Benin, activists say women such as Ismail are forced to keep pregnancies
because of the inaccessibility to safe abortions. The health ministry
estimates that complications from unsafe abortion cause about 20 percent
of maternal deaths. For Ismail, that was a <major reason> why she
decided to keep her pregnancy. <I had a friend who died after visiting a
quack to get an abortion,> she said. <So the thought of that happening
to me forced me to keep it. I didn’t want to die like her.>
Landmark vote
Until last week, access to abortion in Benin was legally allowed
only if the pregnancy endangered the life of the pregnant woman, was a
result of rape, or an incestuous relationship. But in a landmark move on
October 20, following a long parliamentary session, the majority of the
country’s lawmakers voted to legalise abortion. Lawyer Dele Ahounou said
under the new legislation, women are allowed to have an abortion in the
first 12 weeks of pregnancy if it is going to cause a material situation,
moral distress, affect their education or professional lives.
<In short, this law puts the power of having an abortion on the
person who is pregnant,> Ahounou explained.
Women’s rights activists hailed the parliament’s move.
<This has always been the case: Letting women make decisions for
themselves,> Tiwa Tope, a 21-year-old activist, said. <We don’t want a
doctor to determine if an individual should get an abortion, or for
anyone who isn’t pregnant to dictate what people should or shouldn’t
do.>
Amnesty International says that worldwide, an estimated one in
four pregnancies every year ends in abortion. Criminalising abortion
only makes it less safe, it adds.
Still, with laws that continue to restrict access to safe
abortion – which the World Health Organization describes as the
attainment of the highest possible level of sexual and reproductive care
– women and girls will continue to seek out ways to abort a pregnancy in
ways that are not up to medical standards.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/27/activists-hail-new-benin-law-abortion
Al Jazeera
17 Nov 2021
By Katy Fallon
<<Refugees
Syrian ‘hero’ swimmer among dozens facing trial in Greece.
Volunteers who worked on Lesbos, including Sarah Mardini, face
spying charges that could see them jailed for years.
Athens, Greece – Sarah Mardini, the Syrian competitive swimmer
who was hailed as a hero for saving refugees in peril at sea, is among
dozens of humanitarian workers in Greece facing charges that could see
them imprisoned for decades.
The trial of the 24 defendants, who worked on the Greek island of
Lesbos assisting vulnerable people arriving on Europe’s shores, is set
to begin on Thursday. They were members of an NGO, the Emergency
Response Center International (ERCI), a search-and-rescue group that
operated on the Greek island from 2016 to 2018. They face up to eight
years in prison for state-secret espionage and disclosure and 25 years
in jail for charges including smuggling and money laundering.
Amnesty International has called the accusations <unfair and
baseless>.
Three years ago, Mardini and Sean Binder, an Irish citizen and
rescue diver, were volunteering their time on Lesbos when they were
arrested on a series of charges, including smuggling, espionage,
unlawful use of radio frequencies and fraud. They spent more than 100
days in pre-trial detention before being released on bail in December
2018. The trial beginning Thursday could be the first of a possible
series of court cases related to the proceedings brought by Greek
authorities in 2018. She and her sister Yusra Mardini, now an Olympic
swimmer, were widely celebrated for their bravery and humanitarian
spirit. When the engine of the refugee boat they were on failed, they
saved 18 fellow passengers by dragging the sinking vessel to safety.
Sarah returned to the island three years later, in 2018, to volunteer on
a search-and-rescue mission. There she met Binder, 27, and the two
worked to support asylum seekers arriving on Lesbos before they were
arrested.
Rights groups have called for the charges to be dropped and
pointed out inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the prosecution’s case.
<The Greek authorities’ misuse of the criminal justice system to
harass these humanitarian rescuers seems designed to deter future rescue
efforts, which will only put lives at risk,> said Bill Van Esveld,
associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
<The slipshod investigation and absurd charges, including
espionage, against people engaged in life-saving work reeks of
politically motivated prosecution.> Colm O’Gorman, head of Amnesty
International Ireland, said: Sean Binder, who grew up in Ireland, has
seen an outpouring of support for him from across our society, and we
know that the world will be watching what happens in Greece this week.
The fact that he and other humanitarians are facing up to 25 years in
prison for showing basic human decency and compassion is a moral stain
on Europe.
<Seeking asylum is not a crime; trying to save people from
drowning at sea is not a crime. Europe has to stop criminalising
humanitarians, and to start protecting those fleeing to our shores in
search of safety.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/17/activists-in-greece-face-charges-for-assisting-incoming-refugees
Al Jazeera
16 Nov 2021
By Maziar Motamedi
<<Women's Rights
UN experts call on Iran to repeal ‘anti-abortion’ population law
New legislation puts more restrictions on already limited
abortions, outlaws voluntary sterilisations and discourages
contraceptives.
Tehran, Iran – Leading United Nations experts have called on Iran
to repeal a newly implemented law that they say violates women’s human
rights under international law.
The Youthful Population and Protection of the Family law came
into effect on Monday in an effort to encourage higher childbirth rates
as Iran faces a looming crisis due to its ageing population. Supreme
Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei has long supported the idea of increasing
Iran’s current population of about 85 million by tens of millions over
the coming decades.
The legislation, which was fast-tracked through a makeshift
parliament committee and not put to a public parliamentary vote, was
greenlit by the constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, earlier
this month. It can now be “experimentally” implemented for seven years,
a period that can be extended. On Tuesday, nine UN experts on human
rights and violence against women, led by Javaid Rehman, Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, said the new law
was in <clear contravention of international law>.
In a statement, the experts said a vaguely formulated provision
could mean that abortion, if carried out on a large scale, would fall
under the crime of <corruption on Earth> which carries the death
penalty.
<The consequences of this law will be crippling for women and
girls’ right to health and represents an alarming and regressive U-turn
by a government that had been praised for progress on the right to
health,> they added.
<It is shocking to see the extent to which the authorities have
applied criminal law to restrict women’s fundamental rights.>
The law has also been criticised by New York-based rights group
Human Rights Watch, which said it puts women’s health and lives at risk
and should be repealed immediately.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/16/un-experts-call-on-iran-to-repeal-anti-abortion-population-law
Al Jazeera
By Nu Nu Lusan and Emily Fishbein
Published On 16 Nov 2021
<<‘We are warriors’: Women join fight against military in
Myanmar.
As armed resistance to a military coup intensifies, women fight
for gender equity along with an end to dictatorship.
Before taking up arms against the military regime in July, Kabya
May had never worn trousers.
Like many women in Myanmar, the 23-year-old teacher from Sagaing
region was accustomed to wearing an ankle-length sarong called a htamein.
Now, she is a member of the Myaung Women Warriors, Myanmar’s first
publicly announced all-female fighter group.
<I joined because I want to root out the dogs,> said Kabya May,
using what has become a derogatory term for Myanmar security forces.
<The reason I joined a women’s only resistance group is to show that
women can do what men are doing.>
Kabya May is one of an increasing number of women who have joined
the armed resistance to military rule since the coup on February 1. Four
female fighters told Al Jazeera that along with destroying the military
dictatorship, they want to overturn traditional gender norms and ensure
women play an equal role in building a new nation.
Al Jazeera is using pseudonyms for Kabya May and the other women
featured in this article due to the risk of military reprisals.
Women have played a prominent role in the protest movement that
emerged after army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power.
Garment factory workers were among the first to take to the
streets, and women continue to march on the front lines of pro-democracy
demonstrations. They have also been prominent in an ongoing Civil
Disobedience Movement and in leading calls for ethnic minority rights.
Women have at times actively used their femininity as a tool of
resistance. Challenging a superstition that it is emasculating for a man
to pass under, or come into contact with, a woman’s lower garments,
women have waved flags made of sarongs, affixed coup leader Min Aung
Hlaing’s image to sanitary pads, and strung sarongs, knickers and used
sanitary pads across streets to mock and humiliate security forces and
stop them in their tracks.
Women have not been spared the military’s crackdown on dissent:
the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) told Al
Jazeera that out of 1,260 people killed by security forces since the
coup, at least 87 were women, while more than 1,300 of the 12,000 people
sentenced, jailed or charged have been female.
Women’s participation in armed resistance movements in Myanmar is
not new. Some of the country’s largest ethnic armed organisations claim
hundreds of women in their ranks, and Naw Zipporah Sein, the former
vice-chairperson of the Karen National Union, served as the lead
negotiator for ethnic armed organisations during 2015 peace talks that
led to a landmark ceasefire agreement with the military.
But a study on women in ethnic armed organisations in Myanmar
published in 2019 by the Peace Research Institute Oslo found that
overall, women have played subordinate roles, that male leaders failed
to recognise women’s abilities and ignored their ideas, and that women’s
potential to contribute to peace in Myanmar was <greatly undervalued>.
Fight for equality
The coup has sparked a broad reevaluation of such entrenched
views, and the protest movement – led mainly by young people – is
demanding a sweeping overhaul not only of a flawed political system, but
also social inequities.
Amara, spokesperson for the Myaung Women Warriors, told Al
Jazeera that the group seeks to challenge restrictive gender
categorisations. <Society frames certain tasks for men and women,> she
said. <We march to break these stereotypes, and to show that the hands
that swing the [baby] hammock can be part of the armed revolution too.>
Before the coup, Amara had never imagined she would be a
revolutionary fighter. But witnessing the killings and violence around
her compelled her to take what she saw as a necessary step.
<I took up arms only when I had no other choice,> she said. <I
have anxiety about what kind of danger will befall me … On the other
hand, we are determined that we have to win this. We are preparing our
mentality; we don’t feel normal, but we have to control our minds.>
The Myaung Women Warriors is one of hundreds of armed resistance
groups, known commonly as People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), which have
emerged across the country since about April.
<As the whole country is in the revolution, we are playing our
role, and also promoting women’s role,> said Amara.
On October 29, they were part of a coalition of people’s defence
forces that burned down a police station. Amara said the act was meant
to deter soldiers and police from using the station as a base from which
to attack local villages.
Photos of the operation have gained wide traction on social
media.
Amara says that seeing the public’s support has given the women
strength to continue, but that they remain focused on their mission.
We are women warriors, which means we are ready to fight anytime
and anywhere. Warriors are brave, decisive, and loyal … We are ready to
fight for the people.>
Kabya May, the former teacher, joined the armed resistance two
months before the Myaung Women Warriors group was established. Like many
young people across Myanmar, she decided to take up arms after facing
mounting hardships, physical insecurity and an increasingly bleak future.
<Since the coup, nothing has gone well,” she said. “Young people
feel we are wasting our time. We cannot travel freely. When the
[military] dogs come, people are afraid. I don’t want to see those
things anymore.>
The oldest of five children, she had graduated from
teacher-training college in early 2020, fresh with hope that her monthly
salary could enable her father to retire from spraying pesticides on
local farms for daily wages. But months later, schools closed across the
country because of the pandemic, and she began working at a barbecue
shop instead. The coup prompted mass teacher strikes against working
under a military-run administration, and Kabya May signed on. When the
barbecue shop where she was working shut down, she joined her father
spraying pesticides and taking other labour jobs she could find. <My
family is big and we depend on daily wages,> she said. <If we don’t work
for a day, we have nothing to eat.>
When she heard that people from her township were forming an
armed resistance group, she asked whether women could join too. In July,
she began training. It was not only her first time wearing trousers, but
also the first time she had stayed in close quarters with men from
outside her family.
<When I first joined, I felt shy, but later on, I felt
comfortable and we became comrades,> she said. <When I trained with
[men], like push-ups, I tried to keep up … I faced muscle and back pain,
but I endured it.>
Revolutionary life
In Kayah State and neighbouring townships in Shan State near
Myanmar’s southeastern border with Thailand, two young women told Al
Jazeera that they joined local armed resistance groups after the
pandemic and coup destroyed their educational plans, and they were
forced from their homes by escalating conflict. Since May, PDFs in these
areas have joined existing ethnic armed organisations to wage a
formidable front against the military, which has responded with tactics
including air attacks, arson and indiscriminate shelling. Some 165,000
people have been displaced across Myanmar’s southeast, out of 223,000
newly displaced across the country since February, according to the
United Nations.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/16/we-are-warriors-women-join-fight-against-military-in-myanmar
Al Jazeera
16 Nov 2021
<<From: Witness
Mapuche Teen Rap Queen: Chile’s Indigenous Gen Z
A teen rapper in Chile joins a festival in Mapuche territory to
connect with her native roots and highlight injustice.
Millaray Jara is a 15-year-old rapper in Chile who uses social
media to rally support for the Mapuche Indigenous people’s ?ght for
justice and land rights. As Chile rewrites the constitution with the
promise of better Indigenous representation, Millaray uses her
ever-growing social media influence to make sure that the Mapuche voice
is not left out of the conversation. Millaray is based in the capital,
Santiago. She travels to the Trawun Youth Festival in the Mapuche
territories in the south. On her journey, she connects with her
Indigenous roots and amplifies the marginalised experiences of Mapuche
children.
Watch the 25 minute video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/witness/2021/11/16/mapuche-teen-rap-queen-chiles-indigenous-gen-z
Al Jazeera
16 Nov 2021
Brandi Mori
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2021/11/16/snatched-away-the-indigenous-women-taken-on-the-highway-of-tears
!!!!
The Guardian
15 Nov 2021
Helen Davidson in Taipei
<<Concerns grow for Chinese tennis star who accused
ex-vice-premier of assault.
Peng Shuai has not been publicly heard from since she made
accusation online on 2 November.
A growing movement including Chinese feminist groups and
international tennis stars is raising concern over the whereabouts of
the former Chinese doubles pro Peng Shuai after she accused a senior
government figure of sexual assault.
Peng, one of China’s biggest sporting stars, has not been
publicly heard from since a Weibo post on 2 November, in which she
alleged the former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex and
that they had an intermittent affair.
The post was taken down by China’s censors but still went viral.
Subsequent posts and reactions, even keywords such as <tennis>, also
appeared to be blocked, and numerous references to Peng were scrubbed
from China’s internet.
The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) chair and chief executive,
Steve Simon, has called for a <full, fair and transparent> investigation
by the Chinese government.
<Peng Shuai, and all women, deserve to be heard, not censored,>
he said.
Simon told the New York Times the WTA had received confirmation
from several sources including the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA) that
Peng was <safe and not under any physical threat>.
However, he said no one involved with the WTA tour had been able
to reach her; his understanding was that she was in Beijing but he had
not been able to confirm it. He said the WTA had little influence over
China’s authorities, <but we’re not going to back off this position>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/concern-growing-chinese-tennis-star-accused-china-official-assault-peng-shuai
Al Jazeera
15 Nov 2021
<<Several women to sue Qatar over strip-searches at Doha airport.
Lawyer Damian Sturzaker says his clients are seeking compensation
after dealing with a ‘very traumatic episode’.
Seven Australia-based women are planning to sue the government of
Qatar for being forced into invasive gynaecological examinations at
Doha’s international airport last year, their lawyer has said. Damian
Sturzaker, from Sydney-based Marque Lawyers, said on Monday that his
clients were seeking compensation <for the fact that they were effected
at the time and continue to suffer>.
The women, who were among a group of 13 Australians, were ordered
to disembark a Qatar Airways flight to Sidney and to be checked after a
newborn baby was found in a plastic bag in a bin at a toilet in one of
the airport’s terminals in early October 2020.
<They have problems dealing with what was a very traumatic
episode,> he added.
Nine or 10 other flights out of Doha were similarly delayed while
women passengers were searched, he added. The women said they were
subjected to strip search in an ambulance parked on the tarmac.
Sturzaker said he was not aware of passengers on other flights taking
legal action against Qatar over the episode.
<They want an apology from the Qatar government for their
treatment and what they want and have been asking for quite a long time
is that procedures are put in place so that this won’t happen again,>
Sturzaker added.
One of the lawyer’s clients, who declined to be named, told the
BBC that she was <subjected to the most horrifically invasive physical
exam>.
<I was certain that I was either going to be killed by one of the
many men that had a gun, or that my husband on the plane was going to be
killed,> she said in a statement from her lawyer.
A Qatar government spokesman declined to comment, but referred to
previous statements. At the time of the incident, the Gulf country’s
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed
bin Abdulrahman Al Thani expressed his <deepest sympathies with the
women impacted by the search at the airport> and renewed Qatar’s apology
to them.
<The incident is considered a violation of Qatar’s laws and
values,> he said, adding that the officials involved had been referred
to the public prosecutor.
The women, aged from their early 30s to late 50s, would likely
initiate legal action in the New South Wales state Supreme Court within
a few weeks, Sturzaker said. They have not specified the amount of
compensation that they are seeking. The Qatar government, the Qatar
Civil Aviation Authority, as well as the state-owned airline and airport,
have been forwarded legal advice that Australian courts had jurisdiction
to hear the case and that the claimants were likely to win, Sturzaker
said. Australian Federal Police informed the complainants last week that
a single airport police officer had been fined and given a six-month
suspended prison sentence for enforcing the examinations, according to
the lawyer.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/15/seven-women-plan-to-sue-qatar-over-airports-invasive-body-exams
Al Jazeera
12 Nov 2021
OPINION
Sexual Assault
How to address the sexual violence epidemic in Ethiopia?
To end sexual and gender-based violence for good, we need to
acknowledge the problem is not tied only to conflict.
Ndeye Sow
Head of Gender and Peacebuilding at International Alert
<<Earlier this month, a joint report by the United Nations and
the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) exposed how Ethiopia’s
brutal and
rapidly expanding war has been marked by widespread sexual and
gender-based violence.
The survivor testimonies included in the report implicate all
parties involved in the conflict: the Ethiopian National Defence Force,
the Eritrean Defence Force, and the Tigray Special Forces.
Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights,
described the evidence she had seen – young and elderly alike being
violated in front of children, gang rapes, sexual slavery, forced
prostitution and the targeting of minors and the disabled – as a sign of
the conflict’s <extreme
brutality>.
Since the beginning of the conflict in November last year, more
than 1,300 acts of rape have been reported to the authorities, with many
more likely to have been unreported. At least half of the reported cases
were gang rapes. The majority of the incidents documented between
November 2020 and June 2021 <appear to have been committed by Ethiopian
and Eritrean forces.> The UN said it has since seen an increase in the
number of reports of abuses by Tigrayan forces, as well as by Ethiopian
and Eritrean forces.
It has already been more than a year since the beginning of this
bloody conflict, and with a growing alliance of troops advancing towards
the capital, Addis Ababa, it is impossible to tell when the fighting
will come to an end.
There is no end in sight to the suffering of millions of people
who have been affected by this war. But for those who have been
subjected to sexual violence in the past year, the path out of trauma is
even more elusive. The evidence collated by the UN shows some to have
been deliberately infected with HIV. Many are pregnant.
Moreover, sexual violence in Ethiopia is not a problem born out
of this current conflict, and thus, it will not disappear once the guns
are laid down.
Indeed, long before the beginning of atrocities in Tigray, sexual
violence was already widespread across the country. With justice
afforded only to
those able to pay for it, and widely accepted customs validating
misogynistic behaviour, many in Ethiopia have long been committing rape
and other acts of gender-based violence with impunity. Ethiopia’s modern
and progressive constitution explicitly stipulates the rights of women.
Yet the constitution is commonly undermined by prevailing patriarchal
social norms. One out of every 10 women in Ethiopia is a victim of
abduction, early marriage, and, or, marital rape. The ongoing brutal
conflict and the harrowing testimonies published in the UN-EHRC report
drew much-needed attention to the epidemic of sexual violence in
Ethiopia. But the international community’s response to this grave
problem should not be limited to helping those who have been victimised
during the conflict. Any response or remedy should guarantee equal
access to justice and psycho-social support for all survivors –
including those who have been subjected to any form of sexual or
gender-based violence outside the context of the armed conflict.
Moreover, steps need to be taken to ensure sexual and gender-based
violence does not continue after the end of the war. To this end,
educational programmes for potential perpetrators, aimed at changing
perceptions and questioning customs harmful to women, should be
established and financed across the country.
Not an Ethiopia-specific problem
Sexual and gender-based violence is a global problem. It is
estimated that one in every three women across the globe experiences
some form of
physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. And while the spotlight
is currently on Ethiopia due to its ongoing conflict, many of its
neighbours in East
Africa are also suffering from high levels of sexual and
gender-based violence.
There are some common reasons behind the prevalence of sexual
violence in East African countries.
Most East African countries rank at the top of the UN’s Gender
inequality Index. In these countries, trust for the police and
authorities are also low
and the cost of legal recourse can be prohibitive. In the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, court fees for
survivors of sexual and gender-based violence can reach the equivalent
of up to $1,000 – an amount way beyond the financial means of most. All
this results in acts of sexual and gender-based violence being committed
widely, and with impunity.
International NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without
Borders, MSF) revealed that, in 2020, their teams provided assistance to
nearly 11,000 people in DRC for physical and psychological conditions
related to sexual violence.
In its report, MSF acknowledged that renewed conflict in Eastern
DRC led to an increase in cases of sexual violence in the region. But it
also
underlined that <sexual violence in DRC is not only linked to
armed conflict>. Just like it is the case in Ethiopia, thousands of
women and girls in DRC are being subjected to sexual and gender-based
violence every year – by their partners, relatives, and members of their
own community – in areas not affected by any armed conflict.
The evidence collated by MSF further clarifies why sexual
violence should not be treated merely as a by-product of conflict in
countries like the DRC
and Ethiopia.
To end the problem for good, it is crucial to implement bespoke
methodologies to deal with armed and non-armed perpetrators of sexual
violence.
Initiatives aimed at preventing acts of sexual violence during
armed conflict cannot succeed on their own. They need to be supported by
initiatives, policies and advocacy aimed at eradicating the root causes
of sexual violence – norms and customs that disadvantage women and girls,
lack of access to justice, distrust in police and authorities etc.>>
Please do read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/11/12/how-to-address-the-sexual-violence-epidemic-in-ethiopia
Al Jazeera
12 Nov 2021
By Alexandra Radu
<<In Pictures
Gallery
‘The sweetest thing’: The women restoring Borneo’s rainforest.
Kinabatangan River, Malaysia – On the floodplain of Sabah’s
milky-brown Kinabatangan river in Borneo, teams of local women have been
working to restore the area’s degraded rainforest for more than a
decade. They hope to create a forest “corridor” for wildlife in one of
the most biodiverse areas of Malaysia, which has been under pressure for
years from the relentless expansion of oil palm plantations.
Sabah produced nearly two million tonnes of crude palm oil in the
first six months of this year, the most of any state in Malaysia, which
is the world’s second biggest exporter of a commodity used in products
from soap to detergents and ice cream.
The industry’s expansion has not only led to deforestation but
the fragmentation of the forests, crowding and isolating wildlife,
including Borneo’s
unique pygmy elephants and orangutans, into ever smaller areas.
The women’s reforestation teams plant native trees on
strategically-chosen plots with the intention of connecting various
wildlife sanctuaries located around their village of Sukau.
<We need to help with wildlife conservation because the remaining
rainforest in the lower Kinabatangan is too small, we need to plant more
in order to provide a habitat and food for the wildlife species that are
almost extinct,> said Mariana Singgong, who heads one of the two
reforestation teams.
<We are preserving the flora and fauna for future generations.>
Since the reforestation programme began in 2008 under HUTAN, a
local wildlife and forest conservation NGO, the women have planted and
nurtured approximately 101 hectares (250 acres) of rainforest — roughly
the equivalent of a third of the area of New York’s Central Park.
Their main target is not about planting high numbers of trees,
but ensuring the saplings’ survival in an environment where young trees
are at risk of being smothered by tall grasses, bushes, ferns and vines.
The teams spend at least three quarters of their time maintaining
the plots, and their dedication has ensured more than 80 percent of
trees have
survived. The need for quality maintenance and nurturing is what
made HUTAN base their whole reforestation program on women’s teams,
which is
unique for rural Sabah, where women are mainly seen as
homemakers.
<Men are really good at doing certain types of work, planting the
trees, but when we ask them to come back to the same plot again and
again, they can’t pay every time the same attention to every seedling,
as women can,> said Marc Ancrenaz, founder of HUTAN. <Women are much
better at nurturing these trees over the long term.>
This year the restoration work was severely affected by the
pandemic with the women unable to visit the sites with the same
consistency during
Malaysia’s months-long COVID-19 movement restrictions. When they
were eventually able to return, they were dismayed at what they found.
<We saw that many trees had problems, some died, we were sorry to
see they didn’t grow very well. Especially the newly planted ones, they
are
sensitive, three months without maintenance and they can die,>
Norinah Braim, who heads the other reforestation team, told Al Jazeera.
The women had a target of planting 5,000 trees this year. So far
they have managed only 1,770, but they are undeterred.
<Usually by October we would reach our target, but because of the
lockdown there were many delays,> Norinah said. <We will surely reach
our target by the end of the year, we will work hard for that. Women
power!>
HUTAN and the women’s team’s reforestation work was featured in
Al Jazeera’s Earthrise programme in 2012.
This story was produced with support from the Rainforest
Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.
Go here to view the gallery:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/12/local-women-grow-rainforests-in-the-malaysian-borneo
The Guardian
12 Nov 2021
Shah Meer Baloch
<<Pakistan
Women lead fight against extrajudicial killing in Pakistan.
Wave of abductions amid military crackdown in conservative
Balochistan province has mobilised women to protest.
<<The surroundings of the missing persons protest camp in
Pakistan’s troubled region of Balochistan are sadly familiar to
12-year-old Ansa. For two years after her elder brother Amir was
allegedly abducted by security forces, she came to the camp every day
and stood alongside dozens of women whose sons, brothers, fathers and
uncles had similarly disappeared without trace. They held up their
photos and demanded answers and, most of all, the return of their loved
ones. Ansa thought her family were among the lucky ones: Amir was
returned alive in 2019 after two years in a detention centre in an
unknown location. The family was told by the security agencies never to
return to the protest camp again.
But Ansa came back this month after security officials once again
broke into their home looking for another of her brothers. Under the
cover of
darkness Naveed was taken and her family was plunged into a
familiar hell, but mercifully this time it was briefer.
<I hope I won’t be back to the camp for my brothers but I will
keep visiting the missing persons camp for the release of missing
persons,> she said.
In Balochistan, a highly conservative region where women have
restricted rights, it is women, from housewives to students, who have
been leading the charge against the continued forced disappearances,
human rights violations and extrajudicial killings.
The region, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, is Pakistan’s
poorest and least developed. It is home to a long-running and violent
separatist
insurgency that has been met in response with a brutal
military-led crackdown that has targeted political workers, activists,
insurgents and family
members of those associated with the Baloch National Movement (BNM)
and other nationalist groups.
Thousands have been abducted from the streets or their homes in
the dead of night, allegedly by plainclothes security agents, and then
taken to
detention centres in undisclosed locations and often tortured.
Some are returned alive, but more often than not the disappeared turn up
dead years later.
In the past few years the killing of a student, Hayat Baloch, and
a picture of his dead body lying in pool of blood in front his crying
parents, the
murder of Malik Naz, a woman who resisted the private militia in
Balochistan, and the mysterious death of a Baloch exile, Karima Baloch,
in Canada have mobilised women to protest.
Mahnaz Mohammed Hussain, 72, whose three sons allegedly have been
killed by security forces, said women were at the forefront of the fight
for
justice in Balochistan because they continued to pay the heaviest
price. <Women suffer the most in conflict and war, she said. Men get
killed or
abducted. But now we see our children, young and even women are
getting killed, therefore we can’t sit at home and watch.>
On 11 October she resorted to staging a protest in the
Balochistan city of Turbat, where she joined a family who had brought
out in public the bodies of two young children allegedly killed in a
mortar attack by the Pakistan security forces. The Pakistan military has
denied involvement in the attack.
To further add insult to Hussain’s grief, when the deputy
commissioner came to negotiate with the family, he was dismissive of
Hussain, telling her:
<We men are negotiating here. Please keep quiet for a while.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/12/women-lead-fight-against-extrajudicial-killing-pakistan-balochistan-protest-abductions
The Guardian
12 Nov 12 2021
<<Boris Johnson should look Richard Ratcliffe in the eye. If he
did, he would catch a reflection of himself that might prove painful but
illuminating.
For contained in his handling, and fateful mishandling, of the
case of Richard’s wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is almost every
aspect of the Johnson modus operandi. It is a parable of the prime
minister’s approach to politics – and to other human beings.
Ratcliffe is in the last stages of a hunger strike that has seen
him camped outside the Foreign Office for 20 days and nights, weak,
dizzy and
shivering from cold. His wife has been detained in Iran since
April 2016, and he wants her back home. There are other UK nationals
held in Iran,
including Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz, but it’s
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case that implicates Johnson specifically – and says
so much about him.
Start with his most infamous involvement, four years ago this
month, when as foreign secretary Johnson told a Commons committee that
Zaghari-
Ratcliffe was <simply teaching people journalism>, apparently
oblivious to her insistence that she had been in Iran on holiday. Three
days later,
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was hauled before an unscheduled court hearing
in Iran, where Johnson’s words were cited as proof that she had engaged
in
<propaganda against the regime>.
In that act alone, you can see the essence of Johnsonism:
carelessness, in both senses of the word. Most obvious is the slapdash
failure to master his brief, to pay attention to detail. But most
egregious is the lack of human care, the cavalier disregard for the
impact his actions would have on others. That casualness, that lack of
empathy, was a warning to his fellow Tory MPs, one they chose to ignore
when they made Johnson their leader less than two years later.
Had they paid attention, they could have anticipated that this
would be a man who would turn up at the UN or his own climate conference
with
nothing more than a few warmed-up jokes and vague exhortations,
rather than a willingness to put in the hard, detailed work such
diplomacy
demands if it is to make a breakthrough. Nor would they have been
surprised that he would respond to calls for a Covid lockdown by
shouting to his advisers that they should <let the bodies pile high in
their thousands>. Careless and without care: the clues were already
there.
But the Commons gaffe was not the worst of it. Ratcliffe believes
that it was the move that followed a few days later, as Johnson sought
to put out the fire he had started, that cost his wife most dearly.
Johnson briefed friendly papers that Britain would repay the £400m it
owed Iran for an
unfulfilled 1970s arms deal, a move he clearly tied to
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. According to Ratcliffe, setting that price
for Nazanin and not meeting it is <why she is still held to this day>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/12/boris-johnson-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-richard
The Guardian
12 Nov 2021
Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
<<Turkey jails Kurdish politician’s wife over miscarriage form
typo.
Başak Demirtaş and her doctor sentenced over ‘falsified’ medical
report on her miscarriage.
The wife of a jailed Kurdish politician has been sentenced to two
and a half years in a Turkish prison over a typo in a medical report on
a miscarriage, in a case denounced as an <appalling> political
persecution.
A court in Diyarbakır handed down sentences of 30 months each for
Başak Demirtaş, a teacher, and her doctor on Thursday for submitting a
falsified medical report, a local Kurdish news agency reported. The
charges in the case, which began in March 2018, relate to hospital
admissions and two surgeries for a miscarriage Demirtaş suffered in
2015. According to her legal team, the teacher was charged with fraud
because a doctor’s note for five days of medical leave from work was
issued during an appointment on 11 December 2015, but erroneously dated
as 14 December, four days later.
Demirtaş then took unpaid leave for the second half of the
2015-16 school year to recover.
<The sentence of [Demirtaş] to 2.5 years of prison for a mere
clerical error concerning a medical record is appalling and seems beyond
common sense. It just looks so political. It gives the measure of the
worrying state of Turkish judiciary,> Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European
parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, said on Twitter.
Her husband, Selahattin Demirtaş, the former leader of the
pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), is one of the most
high-profile of thousands of politicians, academics, judges and civil
servants who have been jailed in Turkey in recent years in Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan’s crackdown on opposition.
He was imprisoned after his party won enough seats in 2015’s
general election to destroy Erdoğan’s parliamentary majority and faces
more than 100 charges, most of which are terrorism related. The
politician denies all allegations against him.
The European court of human rights ordered Demirtaş’ immediate
release last year, ruling that his detention goes against <the very core
of the
concept of a democratic society>. In an interview in October,
Başak Demirtaş said she and the couple’s two children had not been
allowed to visit him since the pandemic began.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/12/wife-of-jailed-kurdish-politician-gets-30-months-in-turkish-prison-after-typo
Al Jazeera
11 Nov 2021
<<From Witness
The Women of Standing Rock: Fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline
At the Standing Rock protests, Indigenous American women united
to protect their land and water. A group of Indigenous women in the
United States are risking their lives to stop the construction of the
Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The project desecrated ancient burial and prayer sites and
threatened their land, water, and very existence.
In the process, they must face the personal costs of leadership,
even as their own lives and identities are transformed by one of the
great political
and cultural events of the early 21st century. The women do not
call themselves protesters. They see themselves as protectors.
Watch the video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/witness/2021/11/11/the-women-of-standing-rock-fighting-the-dakota-access-pipeline
The Guardian
10 Nov 2021
Rights and freedom is supported by
Humanity United
Ruth Michaelson and Maria Sidiropoulou in Athens
<<Rights and freedom
Femicide
A woman murdered every month: is this Greece’s moment of
reckoning on femicide?
Lax punishments, police inaction and inadequate laws serve to
embolden abusers, say campaigners – and stark figures bear them out
Greek minister urges victims to ‘speak up’ amid wave of domestic
violence.
When a woman reported domestic violence in her building in the
Athens suburb of Dafni in July, it took 25 minutes for the police to
arrive. All the
neighbours could hear Anisa’s husband abusing her but the police
officers did not bother to get out of the patrol car. <They just rolled
down their car windows and left,> Anisa’s neighbour angrily wrote on
Facebook that evening. <No stress, guys. Television only cares about the
bodies. So when he kills her, I’ll tell a television channel to call you.>
Less than three weeks later, Anisa was dead, murdered by her
husband. Neither can be named in full as the case has yet to reach
trial. In a
statement to police, the perpetrator described how he was
overcome with jealousy after Anisa allegedly cheated on him. <I took the
knife with my
right hand and entered her room. She was sleeping, and I rushed
to her and lay on her, stabbing her with the knife in her neck,> he said.
He later
retracted his claim that Anisa was asleep when he killed her.
<He finally killed her. That’s all I have to say,> their
neighbour wrote on Facebook after the murder. At the time, Anisa’s
murder was the sixth
femicide in Greece this year. Since then, at least another six
women across the country have been murdered by their partners or
ex-partners.
Feminist groups estimate that at least one woman in Greece dies
at the hands of a man each month, often their partner or ex-partner. Of
the 11
victims of femicide so far this year, two had previously tried to
report their attacker for domestic violence before they were murdered,
but none of the men had been charged or convicted. A third woman in the
coastal city of Volos was in the process of trying to obtain a
restraining order when she was stabbed to death by her ex-husband.
The spate of femicides throughout this year have shone a
spotlight on police failings when it comes to combatting violence
against women, including accusations from victims’ families that
statements from officials acted as a blueprint for would-be attackers on
how to kill with impunity.
Lawyers and campaigners also point to clauses in the Greek penal
code that they say enable a culture of impunity around violence against
women.
These allow reduced sentences for those accused of homicide if
they were “provoked” or the crime was committed in a rage – often
referred to as a
<crime of passion> – or if the accused displayed good behaviour
before the incident and showed guilt afterwards. They say adding
femicide as a
motive to the penal code would act as a vital counterweight,
denying perpetrators the opportunity to present themselves in court as
innocent men
suddenly overcome by emotion that justified murder.
In 2020 the number of offences related to domestic violence in
Greece was more than three times greater than in 2010.
Ioanna Panagopoulou, a lawyer who represents the families of
several victims of femicide, says: <No one in my entire career has ever
taken full
responsibility, confessing they planned the murder exactly as it
happened. They try to make excuses and say it was a crime of passion or
something else so they get a lesser sentence.>
Panagopoulou is a forceful presence. She flips through a legal
dictionary, a wall covered in religious icons behind her, as she
describes how broadly
courts can interpret clauses in the penal code that allow for
reduced sentences for femicide. <If the person cooperates with the
police afterwards,
that’s considered good behaviour,> she says, adding that she
receives calls about domestic violence every single day. <Most days I
receive two or
three,> she says, spreading her hands wide to show the scope of
the problem.
Families of victims say that lax punishment for femicide is just
one of several ways in which the Greek state fails women, including
ignoring them
when they report domestic violence. Campaigners say this can
prove deadly, as police inaction emboldens perpetrators and can result
in femicide.
Data from the Hellenic police, the national force, shows a steady
rise in domestic violence reports over the past decade.
<There is a culture of violence towards women,> says Anna Razou,
a forensic doctor at an Athens hospital who assesses survivors of
domestic
violence. Razou says she has also seen a rise in complaints,
including an unusual spike this year during Greece’s annual holiday
month of August,
which is normally a quiet period. She views this as a sign that
Greek women feel increasingly compelled to report violence in the wake
of Greece’s
#MeToo movement, which began earlier this year.
<Everyone’s talking about how important it is to stop the
violence, but we can’t do that just by saying it’s bad. We need laws,
and to be strict,> says Razou. She says few women she meets press
charges against their abuser, and those who do often retract their
claims, swayed by a culture that tells women that male violence is
excusable, as well as a recently passed law that can force women to
share custody of their children with their abusers.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/10/a-woman-murdered-every-month-greeces-moment-of-reckoning-on-femicide
Al Jazeera
10 Nov 2021
<<A precious day’: Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai gets married.
Campaigner for girls’ education shares photos of small ceremony
on social media.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and women’s rights campaigner Malala
Yousafzai has married at her home in the United Kingdom.
Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban when
she was just 15, announced the news on Twitter, sharing photos of the
Islamic
marriage ceremony known as the nikkah.
<Today marks ‘,> the 24-year-old wrote. <Asser and I tied the
knot to be partners for life. We celebrated a small nikkah ceremony at
home in
Birmingham with our families. Please send us your prayers. We are
excited to walk together for the journey ahead.>
Thousands responded with good wishes and congratulations, with
the tweet attracting more than 227,000 ‘likes’.
Yousafzai gave no other information about her husband. Social
media users identified him as Asser Malik, general manager of the
Pakistan Cricket
Board’s High Performance Centre.
Yousafzai spent months in treatment after she was shot in 2012,
and went on to write a best-selling memoir titled “I am Malala” and
graduate from Oxford University with a degree in philosophy, politics
and economics.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when she was 17 for her
work on girls’ education, sharing the award with Kailash Satyarthi, a
children’s rights activist from India.
Her non-profit Malala Fund has now invested $2m in Afghanistan.
She has also signed a deal with Apple TV+ that will see her
produce dramas and documentaries that focus on women and children.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/10/nobel-laureate-malala-yousafzai-gets-married
Also read these articles I wrote about Malala Yousafhai in the
1st. quarter of 2019:
http://www.cryfreedom.net/malala.htm
and
http://www.cryfreedom.net/malala2.htm
Al Jazeera
10 Nov 2021
<<
Tigray rebels raped women in Ethiopia’s Amhara region: Amnesty.
Amnesty International found evidence of brutal acts committed by
TPLF fighters during an offensive in August.
Tigrayan rebels raped, robbed and beat several women during an
attack on a town in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, Amnesty International has
found, amid mounting evidence of brutal violence committed during the
year-long conflict.
According to an investigation released on Wednesday by the human
rights watchdog, 14 of the 16 women interviewed from the town of Nefas
Meewcha said they had been gang-raped in August, during an
offensive by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
<The testimonies we heard from survivors describe despicable acts
by TPLF fighters that amount to war crimes, and potentially crimes
against
humanity,> Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said.
<They defy morality or any iota of humanity.>
Fifteen of the 16 rape survivors interviewed described suffering
physical and mental health problems as a result of the attacks,
including back pain, bloody urine, difficulty walking, anxiety and
depression.
Gebeyanesh, a 30-year-old food seller in Nefas Meewcha, told
Amnesty International she was repeatedly assaulted.
<Three of them raped me while my children were crying. My elder
son is 10 and the other is nine years, they were crying when [the TPLF
fighters]
raped me,> she said. <They slapped me [and] kicked me. They were
cocking their guns as if they are going to shoot me.>
The victims reported being insulted and referred to using
degrading ethnic slurs.
Meskerem, 30, who belongs to the Amhara Semitic-speaking ethnic
group, told Amnesty International that three TPLF fighters raped her and
beat her with the butts of their guns.
<They were insulting me, calling me ‘donkey Amhara, you are
strong, you can carry much more than this.’ I was unconscious for more
than an hour,> she said.
The number of women who have been sexually assaulted is likely to
be much higher. According to a local government desk officer for Women,
Children and Youth Affairs, 71 women reported having been raped by TPLF
fighters during the period in question, while the Federal Ministry of
Justice puts the number at 73.
‘Effective siege’ of Tigray
The findings follow a UN investigation into alleged atrocities in
Ethiopia that found all sides committed grave abuses that may amount to
crimes
against humanity and war crimes.
An earlier report by Amnesty International released in August
also found troops fighting in support of the federal government to have
committed
widespread rape against women and girls.
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said the government’s <effective
siege> of Tigray is preventing victims of rape committed by warring
parties
from getting access to health care.
The New York-based rights group also accused the warring sides of
committing widespread sexual violence and deliberately targeting
healthcare
facilities, documenting the physical and mental trauma of rape
victims aged six to 80.
<The government’s effective siege of Tigray since June is doubly
victimising survivors> by denying them critical medical and
psychological care, the organisation said in a report.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/10/tigray-rebels-raped-beat-women-in-ethiopia-war-report
The Guardian
9 Nov 2021
Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies
<<Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
AOC says Republican who posted sword attack video ‘cheered on’ by
party.
Twitter said Paul Gosar’s anime spoof in which he appears to
strike Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez violated its rules on ‘hateful conduct’.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Republican leaders of <cheering
on> a congressman who tweeted a video depicting him striking her with a
sword – and said the incident showed how US institutions failed to
protect women of color.
A video showing Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s staff at her congressional office in 2019 was released
by CNN.
AOC says Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘deeply unwell’ after 2019
video surfaces.
The Democratic congresswoman from New York also said the Arizona
Republican who tweeted the doctored anime video on Sunday, Paul Gosar,
was <just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway> and <couldn’t open a
pickle jar or read a whole book by himself>.
The video ended with an apparent threat to Joe Biden.
On Tuesday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said <threats of
violence against members of Congress and the president of the United
States must not be tolerated> and called on the House Republican leader,
Kevin McCarthy, to <join in condemning this horrific video and call on
the ethics committee and law enforcement to investigate>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-paul-gosar-video-anime-sword
The Guardian
9 Nov 2021
<<'No man wanted to do it': The woman fighting to save Brazil's
Amazon from illegal loggers – video.
Marli Yontep Krikati became the first woman in her Amazon village
to lead the forest guardians after the men declared the job too
dangerous. The
forest guardians are groups of indigenous Brazilians who patrol
their territories to guard against illegal logging, farming and mining
in the face of lax enforcement of Brazil's environmental laws under Jair
Bolsonaro's government. Forest guardian leaders regularly receive death
threats from powerful interest groups who encourage these unlawful
activities. Now, as Brazil declares an end to deforestation by 2030 as
part of the Cop26 summit, we follow the forest guardians on patrol to
witness the severity of the deforestation challenge>>
Watch the video here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2021/nov/09/no-man-wanted-to-do-it-the-woman-fighting-to-save-brazils-amazon-from-loggers-
video
The Guardian
Nov 9 2021
Rights and freedom is supported by
Humanity United
<<Rights and freedom
Global development
Interview
‘I will never get my eyes back’: the Chilean woman blinded by
police who is running for senate
John Bartlett in Santiago
Photo to the article <<Fabiola Campillai, 38, who was shot by
police on her way to work on 26 November 2019 as Chile was convulsed by
protests.
She is running as an independent candidate to become a senator.
Photograph: Tamara Merino/The Guardian
Fabiola Campillai was shot in the face by a teargas canister as
she walked to work in 2019 amid nationwide protests against social
inequality. Now she is running for office as an independent.
On a November evening two years ago, Fabiola Campillai stepped
out into the fading sunshine to head for her night shift at a food
processing plant. For weeks, Chile had been racked by a wave of mass
protests against social inequality, but there were few signs of
demonstrators in Cinco Pinos, the quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts
of Santiago where Campillai lives.
<There weren’t any protests that evening. A man crossed the
street in front of me to buy bread,> Campillai remembers. <And that was
the last thing I ever saw.>
Patricio Maturana, an officer in Chile’s Carabineros police
force, fired a teargas canister at Campillai from just 50 metres away,
hitting her square in the face. A study estimated that the metal
cylinder would have reached temperatures of up to 200C at the moment of
impact.
From then on, Campillai remembers nothing.
The impact shattered her skull and caused cerebrospinal fluid to
leak on to her brain. It blinded her totally and irreversibly, depriving
her of sight,
taste and smell. Rather than helping Campillai as she lay
unconscious, the officers threw more teargas, retreated down an
underpass and drove away.
It was left to neighbours to lift her into a car and drive to
hospital.
Campillai’s horrific, life-changing ordeal has made her Chile’s
most recognisable victim of police brutality. After months of operations
and
rehabilitation, Campillai is beginning to rebuild her life in
total blackness. And she is also standing as an independent candidate
for Chile’s senate in elections later this month – which will also see
the country elect a new president.
<I will never get my eyes back,> she says, the light catching two
prosthetic spheres set into her reconstructed eye sockets. <But I want
to turn this tragedy into a strength and keep on fighting. Not just from
the streets like before, but from the legislature – I want to be there
to help change everything.>
On 21 November, Campillai will be on the ballot to become one of
Santiago’s five senators. She is running against a former health
minister, Jaime
Mañalich, who notoriously declared on television that he had <no
idea> about the poverty and overcrowding in the southern districts of
Santiago where Campillai was born and raised.
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/09/fabiola-campillai-chile-blinded-by-police-senate-candidate
The Guardian
Nov 9 2021
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Peter Muiruri in Nanyuki
<<‘She did not deserve to die like this’: family of Agnes Wanjiru seek
justice.
Reports that British soldier confessed to Kenyan woman’s murder in 2012
have deeply affected relatives in Nanyuki.
A vibrant sisal plant in a public cemetery on the outskirts of Nanyuki
in Kenya marks the grave of Agnes Wanjiru, the woman allegedly murdered
by a British soldier in March 2012. It is easy to miss the grave due to
heavy undergrowth in the unkempt cemetery.
But Wanjiru is not resting in peace. Recent media reports claiming that
a British soldier had confessed to a fellow squad member to killing the
21-
year-old woman and dumping her body in a septic tank at Lions Court
hotel have reignited a fire that her family and friends thought was long
extinguished. The claims, and subsequent global media interest in the
story, have put Rose Wanyua, Wanjiru’s eldest sister, on edge, not sure
of
what to make of this <new> information. She still has one question for
the killer: <What did my sister do to you to deserve this?>
Wanyua is reserved, and would rather keep quiet when asked about the
events that led to Wanjiru’s death nine years ago. The death, Wanyua
says, affected her more than their mother’s, which occurred when Wanjiru
was a small girl. <It’s painful, very painful. Shiru did not deserve to
die the way she did,> says Wanyua, using a diminutive form of her
sister’s name. <We will never forget her.>
She abhors the now <unanimous conclusions out there> that Wanjiru was a
sex worker who frequented Nanyuki’s entertainment hotspots looking for
male clients. <A friend told my sister that there was some ‘quick money’
to be made that evening if only Wanjiru joined her in entertaining the
Johnnies in town. She was a hair stylist who used to make my daughters’
hair, never the prostitute as many would like the world to believe,>
says
Wanyua, referring to soldiers who are part of the British army training
unit in Kenya (BATUK).
The family is especially appalled by the apparent cover-up of the events
that led to Wanjiru’s death and the lacklustre manner in which previous
investigations were conducted by those the family had put their hopes
in. The family comes from a poor background – so poor that it took weeks
to fundraise the 7,000 shillings needed to buy a coffin – and lacked the
financial muscle to summon the strong legal representation needed to
fight it out with the British government.
Wanyua and her husband, John Wachira, live in Majengo, Nanyuki, where
most homes are made of rusty corrugated iron sheets and rickety wooden
planks. Their one-bedroom house is dimly lit and it is difficult to make
out the couple’s facial expressions. The family moved here in 2013, in
an
attempt to wipe out the bad memories after Wanjiru’s death. The houses
contrast sharply with the high-end tourist lodges around Nanyuki, many
foreign-owned, where guests pay close to a million shillings (£6,500) to
spend a night.
Wanjiru’s death has upset this delicate balance.
Apart from the training carried out jointly with Kenya’s military, the
UK soldiers’ development activities, including infrastructure
rehabilitation and
drilling boreholes in Laikipia county’s arid regions, portray them as
<kind and compassionate>.
The UK government pumps an average of 7.5bn shillings annually into the
Kenyan economy through British military training. The money trickles
down to motorcycle riders, taxi drivers and curio dealers in Nanyuki.
Part of this money, in the pockets of British soldiers, has sustained
the town’s sex trade, reeling in young girls to the soldiers on a
regular basis. <I don’t think the ‘business’ will stop,> says Wycliffe,
a boda boda (motorcycle) rider and a former classmate of Wanjiru’s. <The
girls are just lying low to let the [storm] pass.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/09/she-did-not-deserve-to-die-like-this-family-of-agnes-wanjiru-seek-justice
Al Jazeera
7 Nov 2021
In pictures
<<Poles protest strict abortion law after pregnant woman dies.
Women’s rights activists say Poland’s newly restrictive abortion law is
to blame for the death of a pregnant woman.
Protesters have turned out in Warsaw and in many other Polish cities to
decry the country’s restrictive abortion law, which they say has led to
the
death of a pregnant woman who had medical problems. The protesters on
Saturday held portraits of the woman, 30-year-old Iza, who died in
hospital
in Pszczyna, southern Poland, from septic shock. She died in September
but her death just became known in the last week.
Doctors at the hospital held off terminating her 22-week pregnancy
despite the fact that her foetus lacked enough amniotic fluid to
survive, her family and a lawyer said. The doctors have been suspended
and prosecutors are investigating.
Women’s rights activists say the woman was a victim of Poland’s newly
restrictive abortion law. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled last
year that terminating a pregnancy with congenital defects is against
Poland’s constitution.
Activists say doctors in Poland, a heavily Catholic nation, now wait for
a foetus with severe defects to die in the womb rather than perform an
abortion. Unlawful abortion can carry a sentence of up to eight years in
prison.
Participating in the protest in Warsaw, under the motto of <Not One
More> woman to die, was Donald Tusk, the former European Union leader
who is now head of Poland’s opposition. The protesters gathered before
the Constitutional Tribunal then marched to the health ministry and lit
up their mobile phones in memory of the woman who died.
Protests were also held in Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw, Bialystok and other
cities.
Before the new restriction, women in Poland could have abortions only in
three cases: if the pregnancy resulted from rape, if the woman’s life
was at risk, or in the case of irreparable defects of the foetus. The
last possibility was removed by the tribunal’s verdict.
Those in favour of the new restriction say it is not clear that it led
to the woman’s death.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said the case was <difficult> and
needed close analysis. He said instructions will be issued to make it
clear to
obstetricians that a <woman’s safety is a reason to terminate a
pregnancy>.>>
Read and see the pictures here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/7/poland-protest-strict-abortion-law-after-pregnant-woman-dies
Al
Jazeera
By Olivia Acland
Published On 7 Nov 2021
<<LONG READ
Features
|
Women's Rights
‘You make money by finding men’: DR Congo’s gold rush sex trade.
In an insecure part of eastern DRC where some of the world’s most
valuable minerals are mined, impoverished women and girls sell their
bodies to
put food on the table.>>
Luhihi, Democratic Republic of the Congo – Deborah* walks down a mud
alley between houses cobbled together with plywood and sheets of
tarpaulin.On the corner, fuzzy beats emanate from a tin-roofed
nightclub. It is only 2pm but drunk men are already hovering at the
door, necking beers and milky glasses of moonshine.
Inside it is dark, except for some disco lights that flash green and
red. A small group of people are huddled at a table. This place will
fill up in the
evening, Deborah says, but right now most men are up on the hillside,
digging for gold. She often comes here at night when she is looking for
clients.
Deborah, who is 17, works as a prostitute in Luhihi, a town on the edge
of a gold mine in South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC). She moved here a year ago, soon after the most recent gold rush
began.
People first started digging in Luhihi in 2014, but when deposits seemed
to dry up, most went elsewhere. Then, in May 2020, a man found a large
lump of gold and the news quickly spread across the region. Within
weeks, hundreds of miners had turned up with spades and pickaxes. They
dug
tunnels, some as deep as 30 metres, into the hillside. They now spend
their days underground, shovelling earth into sacks. They hope that
nestled somewhere amid the grit they will spot a glinting speck of gold.
Many miners are already frustrated, though, and say they have not found
gold in months. Some sit at the mouths of the pits, smoking cigarettes
while they wait for their friends to emerge from deep within. Lots of
people have already drifted off to try their luck at other sites, says
one young miner, after clambering out of a tunnel wearing a head torch.
At its height, the Luhihi gold rush also attracted a lot of enterprising
businessmen who erected bars, brothels, clubs and gambling dens at the
bottom of the valley. Miners still mill around, especially in the
evenings, but the town is not the bustling place it once was.
In the evenings, women and girls working as prostitutes – some as young
as 14 – linger on muddy street corners, waiting for customers. Faced
with few alternatives in an impoverished region, ravaged by insecurity,
they sell their bodies to put food on the table.
‘Sometimes they force you to have sex’
Deborah came to Luhihi when a friend told her that she might be able to
find work in one of the makeshift restaurants or bars that had just
sprung
up. But after days of trawling the town and finding no jobs, she started
to get desperate.
<I was staying with my friend, Claudine*, who was selling beer but also
sleeping with men for money,> she says. <I used to ask her for things,
like food, but she did not have much to share. At some point she said,
‘Look, you are a big girl, you can make your own money by finding men’.>
Claudine warned Deborah to use condoms when she slept with men to
prevent unwanted pregnancies. Her first client, a man in his 20s, tried
to have sex without one. She refused and he left, only to return the
following night, this time agreeing to her conditions and offering her
$10 for the night. It does not always happen this way.
<After they give you the money, they sometimes just force you to have
sex with them without a condom,> Deborah says. <Or they refuse to pay if
you ask them to use one.> The morning after having unprotected sex, she
takes two aspirins, believing this will reduce her risk of pregnancy.
Whole villages disrupted
In a country where 70 percent of the population survives on less than $2
a day, survival sex is widespread says Lorenza Trulli, a child
protection
officer for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Matters are
even worse in the conflict-racked eastern provinces where fighting
exacerbates
poverty. While Luhihi is not overrun by rebels – largely because it is
relatively close to the busy, provincial capital of Bukavu – militiamen
roam the
region and control other mines nearby.
<What is clear is that in conflict-affected areas the risks of violence
and sexual exploitation against girls are multi-layered,> says Trulli.
“First of all, access to schools might be disrupted as a consequence of
conflict. Insecurity might mean people – women, and girls in particular
– cannot safely move around. The whole socioeconomic fabric of a village
might be disrupted.”
UNICEF has programmes in the province that offer psychosocial support
and medical care to women in need, though no organisation is yet working
with vulnerable women and girls in Luhihi.
Caught in the crossfire
Deborah’s life was derailed more than a decade ago when her father was
shot by rebels outside her family’s house in Numbi, another mining town
in the same province of South Kivu. Militiamen were firing at soldiers
and her father was caught in the crossfire when he rushed outside to
protect his other daughter, who was sitting near the house.
Deborah was just six but her mother could not afford to support her
alone, so she dropped out of school and went to live with some
neighbours. She would help clean their house in exchange for a place to
sleep and some food. As she got older, they told her that they could no
longer afford to look after her, so she approached another family. For
years, she drifted from house to house, working odd jobs and receiving
shelter and meals in return.
By the time she was 15, Deborah had reached Bukavu, which is around 50km
from Luhihi’s mines. A soldier in her neighbourhood invited her to his
house, saying he wanted to speak with her and offer her some money and
food.
When Deborah got there, he sat her down and suggested that he pay her $5
for sex. She refused, but he forced himself on her.
She fell pregnant and now has a one-year-old son, whom she struggles to
support. <He is often sick,> she says, <And I need money to buy him
medicine.> This is largely what drove her to go and look for work in
Luhihi.>>
Listen to this story and read the full article here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/11/7/you-make-money-by-finding-men-congos-gold-rush-sex-trade
Read also a report published by Amnesty International in Oct 2014 but
unfortunaly still actuall:
http://cryfreedom.net/CONGO%20MASS%20RAPES.pdf
The
Guardian
Nesrine Malik
6 Nov 2021
<<‘I can’t explain how I am still alive’: Dr Denis Mukwege on risking
his life to save African women
The Nobel prize-winning gynaecologist counts Michaela Coel, Jill Biden
and a small army of Congolese women among his fans. Yet he still won’t
call himself a hero.
In 1984,at the age of 29, Dr Denis Mukwege moved to France from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo to complete his training as a junior
obstetrician. It was his first trip to Europe, and he had spent half his
life savings on the air fare. The city of Angers was to be his home for
five years, but he struggled to make it one. He would arrange to view
flats and on arrival would be told that they had just been let. It took
him a while to figure out that it was his skin colour that was making
apartments disappear. He finally found a home in a houseshare with other
students.
When he took up his training position, he was astonished at how well
staffed and equipped the hospital was compared with the one he had come
from in the DRC, which delivered the same number of babies annually with
just two doctors, as opposed to 30. Mukwege was already far more
experienced than his peers in France. He had gained expertise beyond his
years working in a small, under-resourced hospital where he operated on
women and girls by torchlight and often broke away, mid-surgery, to
consult medical literature for instructions.
Michaela Coel called Dr Mukwege a ‘real hero’. Jill Biden said that
‘beyond healer to these women and girls, he is hope’
Assisting in a caesarean section, he surprised a French professor who,
puzzled by Mukwege’s skill, asked him if he had done this before. <About
500 times,> Mukwege said.
<Then why are you here?> the professor asked.
After his training, Mukwege would return to the DRC and embark on a
career that would save thousands of lives and galvanise doctors and
activists globally. He became not only a surgeon, treating victims of
rape as a weapon of war, but also an advocate, a champion of women in
the DRC and across the world.
He understood early on that his medical work would have limited impact
until the root causes of sexual violence were eliminated. So he ran his
surgeries, but also challenged different armed groups, and his own
government, for their complicity in sexual war crimes, inviting threats
to his own life.
This has made him an inspiration to feminists the world over. Michaela
Coel called him a <real hero>. Jill Biden said that <beyond healer to
these
women and girls, he is hope>. The author V (formerly Eve Ensler), after
meeting Mukwege in 2008, forged a personal friendship with him, as well
as a professional partnership to raise funds and awareness with him.
This culminated in the construction of the City of Joy in Bukavu,
Mukwege’s birth town in eastern DRC, <a safe space for raped women that
offers protection, education, and inspiration for its residents>.
Mukwege has been clearing those safe spaces for women since the first
day he stepped into a small rural hospital in the DRC in 1983.
Thirty-five years later, he found himself in Norway, accepting a Nobel
Peace prize for his efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a
weapon of war and armed conflict.
Today, Mukwege is talking to me on a video call from a hotel room in
Paris, where he is on a whistle-stop tour prior to the French
publication of his
book, The Power of Women: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing. His
accent is unmistakably French, as is his outfit: a dark suit, a white
shirt, and a colourful silk cravat tucked into his collar. His body
language, the way he leans into the screen, ear first, calls to mind a
doctor listening before he can give an opinion.
After I tell him that his book resonated with me, an African woman with
a difficult obstetric experience in the past, and whose grandmother who
lost multiple children shortly after birth, he won’t let me move on.
<You have to talk about these things,> he says. In many parts of Africa,
he explains, there is too much hidden trauma that people carry around.
<We need to get people healthy so that they can have this capacity to
think about the future. But when we have all this trauma, it can be
hard.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/06/i-cant-explain-how-i-am-still-alive-dr-denis-mukwege-on-risking-his-life-to-save-african-women
Note by Gino d'Artali: already in Jan 2020 I in Cryfreedom.net reported
about Doctor Mukwege:
<NORTH WEST EAST SOUTH
RAPE EVERYWHERE
Since long I've read about the Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege
living and working in Congo and because of the greusomeness and
neverending number of rape victims he decided about 20 years ago to open
a hospital only to try and help them and he fugaratively speaking fought
to death in trying to do so. The perpetrators: rivaling tribes in war
raping the women of other tribes as a trophee and proof of their
'bravery'.
Mr. Mukwege literary saved hundreds of women and not only deserves a
minutes long standing ovation but he has been nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize laureate. something he more than well deserves and
especially his goal of what to do with the money.
He not only deserves our deepest respect (click here to read the full
story
https://www.voanews.com/africa/nobel-laureate-seeks-backing-new-fund-
aid-women-raped-war
The Guardian
4 Nov 2021
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Alexandra Topping
<<‘It is what girls need’: the FGM activist hoping to be the Gambia’s
president.
Despite inexperience and few allies, Jaha Dukureh is offering people
change and a break with the past in December’s election.
Jaha Dukureh was a young mother of three with little campaigning
experience when she started a movement in the Gambia to end female
genital
mutilation, backed by the Guardian.
In the seven years that followed she advised Barack Obama in the US,
where she was then living, helped have FGM banned in her home country,
was nominated for a Nobel peace prize and became a UN ambassador.
Now 31, she wants to defy expectations again, standing for president in
the west African nation on 4 December, despite being a relative unknown
on the political scene.
<I’ve always known that I wanted to serve, but in what capacity I wasn’t
sure,> she says, via an intermittent internet call from the Gambia. <I’m
a very passionate and emotional person [and] people always told me if
you’re a leader, people can’t see emotions. But the older I get, the
more I
realise that that’s what makes me human, that’s how people connect with
me.
I am facing a lot of ageism, and a lot of sexism,> she says. <But for
me, the fact that I even dare to say that I want to be president in the
Gambia is statement enough – it is what girls need right now. It’s an
answer to everyone that has ever questioned our ability to lead not only
in Africa, but across the world.>
A newcomer to Gambian politics, Dukureh joined the People’s Democratic
Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) in March. The party
was part of Coalition 2016 in the 2016 presidential election. Its
candidate, Adama Barrow, defeated strongman Yahya Jammeh, who finally
stepped down and left the country after 22 years of rule in 2016.
The Barrow government has failed Gambia on multiple fronts,> says
Dukureh. <We’ve had a regime change, but now we need a system change.>
>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/04/jaha-dukureh-fgm-activist-hoping-to-be-the-gambia-president
The Guardian
3 Nov 2021
The Guardian staff
<<Chinese tennis star accuses former vice-premier of #MeToo abuse.
Online censors blocked Peng Shuai’s post on Weibo of Zhang Gaoli’s
alleged assault over several years.
The Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has apparently accused a former
vice-premier of sexual assault, engulfing the highest echelons of
Beijing’s ruling Communist party in a #MeToo scandal for the first time.
Authorities scrambled to stop the allegations from spreading, with
online censors even appearing to block the word “tennis”.
In a now-deleted post on one of her social media accounts, Peng, 35,
said she and Zhang Gaoli, 75, had an on-off extramarital “relationship”
over several years, which she said he tried to keep secret. Peng said
Zhang had stopped contacting her after he rose in the ranks of the
Communist party, and that at one point he expressed concern that she
might tape their encounters.
About three years ago, she wrote, Zhang invited her to play tennis with
him and his wife and then sexually assaulted her in his house. <I never
consented that afternoon, crying all the time,> she wrote.
Peng’s post on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site similar to Twitter,
was not visible on Wednesday, suggesting it may have been deleted, and
the Guardian was unable to confirm its authenticity.
From 2013 to 2018, Zhang was one of just seven members of the elite
Politburo Standing Committee, headed by China’s leader, Xi Jinping. He
has not commented on the allegations and the Guardian cannot
independently verify them.
In her post, the former top-ranked player acknowledged she would be
unable to produce evidence to back up the accusations but said she was
determined to voice them. <Like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the
flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you,> said
Peng, who became No 1 in the 2014 Women’s Tennis Association doubles
rankings.
Within hours after the post appeared on Tuesday night, China’s <Great
Firewall> appeared to have gone up. Searches for Peng’s name, and in
some cases the word <tennis>, seemed to have been blocked by China’s
notoriously effective censors. Peng’s Weibo account was hidden from
searches and users were unable to comment on her posts.
In China, authorities have charged government officials with sexual
misconduct in the past, often in conjunction with corruption
investigations. However, such accusations have never been publicly
disclosed against someone in such a senior political position as Zhang.
The country’s #MeToo movement has gathered pace in recent years, and the
arrest in August of one of China’s biggest pop stars, Kris Wu, on rape
allegations had raised hopes that authorities were finally addressing
allegations. Wu has denied the claims.
A leading figure in China's #MeToo movement Zhou Xiaoxuan, known also as
Xianzi, left, speaks to journalists and supporters outside court before
a hearing in her case in September.
Zhou Xiaoxuan, who became the face of the domestic #MeToo movement in
2018 after accusing a state-run television host of groping and forcibly
kissing her, wrote online that she was sympathetic towards Peng.
<I hope she’s safe and sound,> she wrote.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/tennis-star-peng-shuai-accuses-chinese-communist-party-official-zhang-gaoli-of-sexual-assault
Al Jazeera
By Alex Howlett and Al Jazeera Investigative Unit
Published On 2 Nov 2021
<<LONG READ
Features
|
Investigation
‘What we fear as women’: Sexual abuse in UK universities.
Listen to this story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/11/2/what-we-fear-as-women
Al Jazeera
2 Nov 2021
<<UK police officers admit taking, sharing photos of murder victims
Two London officers photographed the bodies of sisters Bibaa Henry and
Nicole Smallman, whose mother has accused police of racism.
Two British police officers have admitted to taking photographs of the
bodies of two murdered sisters and sharing the images online.
Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis, members of London’s Metropolitan Police
(Met) service, pleaded guilty on Tuesday at the capital’s Old Bailey
court to capturing and distributing images of Bibaa Henry and Nicole
Smallman after they were killed in a park last year.
Henry, 46, and Smallman, 27, were found dead on June 7, 2020, in Fryent
Country Park in Wembley, northwest London, where they had been
celebrating Henry’s birthday.
Danyal Hussein, 19, was last week sentenced to life in prison for their
murders after telling the Old Bailey he had made a pact with <a demon>
to kill women.
Officers Jaffer and Lewis were tasked with protecting the scene
following the incident, but on June 8 left their posts and approached
the sisters’ bodies before taking <inappropriate> and <unauthorised>
photographs that were later shared on WhatsApp, the court was told.
Jaffer, 47, took four pictures of the victims and Lewis, 33, took two,
the court heard.
Prosecutors said Lewis edited one picture by superimposing his face onto
the photograph with the victims in the background.
He then sent that image to Jaffer, who forwarded it on, unsolicited, to
a female officer also present at the scene, the court was told.
Jaffer and Lewis admitted misconduct in a public office.
Judge Mark Lucraft granted the defendants conditional bail and adjourned
sentencing until December.>>
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/2/uk-police-officers-admit-taking-sharing-photos-of-murder-victims
The Guardian
2 Nov 2021
<<Opinion
Abortion
Take it from an Irish woman: if US abortion rights keep slipping, dark
days are coming
Maeve Higgins
In 2018, Ireland finally voted to legalize terminations. Before that
condoms, divorce and abortion were illegal and shameful.
I am a woman in America who can bear children, and this means that there
are powerful people coming for me, with detailed and strategic plans to
control my body. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? It is dramatic, more so
because it’s a straight-up fact. In 2021, state legislatures enacted
more abortion restrictions than in any previous year, according to an
analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy body
dedicated to advancing reproductive rights. Last month’s decision by the
supreme court to refuse to block a Texas law all but banning abortion
signals that the court could well be on the way to overturn Roe v Wade,
and soon.
National legalized abortion is just one part of this. Reproductive
justice advocates as far back as 1994 understood that when women don’t
have access to abortion it generally means that we don’t have access to
a whole host of other rights: affordable contraceptives, comprehensive
sex education, pre-natal care, even screening and treatment for a
variety of diseases including cancer and HIV. This is an overall form of
oppression, and I know what’s happening. I also fear I know what’s
coming.
I live in New York City, I am financially stable and I am white. These
factors, as well as legal protections in New York, mean that I get to
live a life free from coercion, with access to contraception, to
reproductive healthcare, to a medical abortion if I need one. I don’t
take this for granted, because this reality is worlds away from where I
grew up – in Ireland, a country that only legalised abortion in 2018.
Here in the US, back in 1973, the supreme court affirmed the legality of
a woman’s right to have an abortion under the 14th amendment to the
constitution. Living in this far from perfect nation, I still have the
right to make choices about my own health and future, meaning a life
with more dignity and autonomy than I had growing up, and that is an
extraordinary thing.
But even if I don’t yet feel it, the threat of losing this hard-won
freedom is all around me. In the words of Alexis McGill Johnson,
president and chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, <The moment is dark … No matter where you live, no matter where
you are, this fight is at your doorstep right now.>
McGill Johnson was speaking on 2 October, as women across the country
organized through the Women’s March protested against the US supreme
court’s refusal to block the Texas legislation. Talk about being up
against it: Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices, meaning
that the court now has an anti-abortion majority and reproductive
justice hangs in the balance. That is why on 4 October, Emma Whittman, a
22-year-old public health student from Arizona sat in the road, blocking
traffic outside the supreme court in Washington DC. She was arrested for
civil disobedience.
<I’m not from Texas, but I feel like I’m fighting for people in Texas,>
she told me, as well as people <in all of these other states that will
probably get abortion bans, and will be impacted when Roe v Wade is
overturned. I feel like I’m fighting for all women around the country.>
It was Whittman’s first arrest and the experience of being searched and
held by the police was scary. Concerns about how an arrest and a
potential crinal record may affect her future career worried her too.
But Whittman was not alone. Her mother, an OB/GYN from Tucson, was there
too, reassuring her daughter as she was zip-tied, telling her that she
loved her and was proud of her.
Women take care of each other. We always have. In Ireland, in the
darkest and most oppressive times, when our reproductive rights and our
health were out of our hands, we did what we could to make each other
safe. In 1980 Irish women could not get condoms, divorce was illegal and
abortion was shameful, illegal and dangerous. In 2018, after a
compassionate but fierce campaign, almost two of every three Irish
people voted to legalize abortion.
Today in the US, the moment is indeed dark, and there are darker times
ahead. Women, as ever, are fighting against that.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/02/take-it-from-an-irish-woman-if-us-abortion-rights-keep-slipping-dark-days-are-coming
The Guardian
Victoria Bekiempis in Philadelphia
1 Nov 2021
<<US crime
Why accounts of Philadelphia train passengers not intervening in a rape
spread.
A police narrative of people watching a man rape a woman was ‘not true’,
but it still ran wild in the press – similar to a 1964 murder that
prompted the ‘bystander effect’.
The news was horrifying, a parable of inhumanity so grim that it was
destined to go viral.
Two weeks ago, police said that passengers on Philadelphia’s elevated
train watched a man rape a woman and did not intervene – and that some
riders might have even recorded the 13 October attack with their
cellphones. These onlookers did not call for help during the attack. The
only person who dialed 911 was an off-duty transit worker, police
alleged.
<I’m appalled by those who did nothing to help this woman,> Timothy
Bernhardt, superintendent of the Upper Darby Township police department,
said on 16 October. <Anybody that was on that train has to look in the
mirror and ask why they didn’t intervene or why they didn’t do
something.>
Bernhardt said the passengers who stood idly by might even face criminal
charges, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Transit authorities
made similar statements and the story rapidly spread around America and
then the world as a grim symbol of an uncaring society, obsessed with
social media over helping a victim being attacked.
But, it now seems, the story was not entirely accurate. In fact, the
story is far more complex, revealing not only a brutal crime, but how a
mistaken narrative ran wild in the press. At the same time, the
appalling rape does reveal social problems in America, but they center
around crime, the pandemic and policing, not the baleful influence of
social media.
The Delaware county district attorney, whose office is prosecuting the
case against alleged rapist Fiston Ngoy, said this portrayal of
bystanders callously videoing the crime was <simply not true>. The
prosecutor, Jack Stollsteimer, said it was wrong for authorities and
media to advance the narrative that people were <callously sitting there
filming and didn’t act>, calling this <misinformation>.
While Ngoy’s alleged interactions with the victim took place over a
40-minute period, starting with unwanted talking and then groping, the
rape lasted about six minutes. Other riders were not on the train for
the entire duration of their interaction, and might not have known what
was happening, Stollsteimer said.
Surveillance video from the train revealed two passengers raised their
phones toward the assault, and that one of those provided their video to
authorities, AP said.
The dramatic turn of events has raised questions about how the original
narrative took off, and why it might have staying power. There is no
single answer – explanations are multifaceted and nuanced, ranging from
police accountability to broad societal fears to longstanding concerns
over public safety.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/01/philadelphia-police-bystanders-filming-mistaken-narrative
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