South Africa Gang Rape of 17 y/o girl
 

*trigger warning*

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/world/...ape/index.html

End Rape Culture in 2013
 

(underlining mine)

I don't think the rates are similar.

I am sure that our North American statistics are skewed some with, as you stated, under/non-reporting, but I don't think it approaches the extreme rate of South Africa's level of sexual violence against women--some of the highest in the world.

One of every 17 Canadian women is raped at some point in her life and one in four will be sexually assaulted, whereas in the CNN article it reads that the government of South Africa noted that 71% of women report having been victims of sexual abuse.

More incredibly painful statistics concerning South Africa's epidemic of sexual violence against women: Wikipedia:

South Africa no longer has the highest rapes per capita, but rape and sexual violence is still a problem.[15] The incidence of rape has led to the country being referred to as the "rape capital of the world".[16] One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year.[17] More than 25 per cent of South African men questioned in a survey published by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in June 2009 admitted to rape; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person.[18][19] Three out of four of those who had admitted rape indicated that they had attacked for the first time during their teens.[18] South Africa has amongst the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world.[20] [21]
---

Girl in Maldives faces flogging for premarital sex
 

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Maldives authorities have called on the country’s Islamic ministry and judiciary to stop the public flogging of a teenaged girl for having sex outside marriage, a government official said Friday.

A court in the tiny island of Feydhoo last week sentenced the 15-year-old to 100 lashes after she admitted to having consensual sex, a court official said on condition of anonymity because he had no formal approval to speak to the media.

The official said details of the consensual sex emerged when police investigated her complaint against her stepfather and another man of sexually abusing her.

He said the sentence includes an option for the flogging to be carried out when the girl turns 18.

Her partner has not been identified and it was not clear how hard the police tried to identify him, he said.

Government spokesman Masood Imad said the government considered her a victim of sexual abuse and wants the sentence revoked.

He said President Mohammed Waheed Hassan has started talks with the Islamic ministry, judiciary, attorney general, human rights commission and gender ministry in order to stop ‘‘victims becoming victims of the law.’’

‘‘The government fully understands she is a victim. Since this is an Islamic affair we don’t want to unilaterally say things,’’ Imad said.

The practice of flogging for sex outside marriage has been widely condemned and it is often the woman who is singled out for punishment.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in 2011 urged Maldives to end the ‘‘degrading’’ practice.

‘‘This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,’’ she said speaking at the Maldives Parliament.

She urged the authorities to change the law that allows flogging.

Maldives is an Indian Ocean archipelago of 300,000 people, all of whom are Sunni Muslims. Practicing or preaching any other religion is illegal.

- See more at: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asi....jStGvYiZ.dpuf

Another Victory for the VAWA--INCLUSIVE of LGBTQ!!!!!
 

House passes LGBT positive Violence Against Women Act

Feb. 28, 2013
The House of Representatives passed on Thursday the approved version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which has been praised by LGBT groups as being inclusive to their needs.

The bipartisan vote passed 286 to 138 and included 87 Republicans.

"Today's victory marks a rare occasion when Republicans and Democrats came together to ensure explicit protections in the
federal code for 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity.' It is also the first time that any federal non-discrimination provisions
include the LGBT community," wrote leading LGBT organization Human Rights Campaign in a statement following the vote.

The bill, co-sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy and other Democrats, and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), had already passed the Senate with a 78-22 vote. Many are praising legislators for their robust show of bipartisan action, including President Obama.

"This important step shows what we can do when we come together across party lines to take up a just cause," Obama said.
"The bill passed by the Senate will help reduce homicides that occur from domestic violence, improve the criminal justice
response to rape and sexual assault, address the high rates of dating violence experienced by young women, and provide justice to the most vulnerable among us."

The VAWA provides state and local authorities with grants that effectively serve millions of women across the United States. Now LGBT individuals could be included in the bill's success thanks to three key provision revisions.

Alli McCracken, National Organizer at Codepink in Washington, told 429Magazine after the Senate vote that "you can't have an
actor that denounces violence against women without including all women. That includes women who are a part of the LGBTQ
community, with a particular emphasis on the Q." "Republicans are against [the VAWA] because of the provisions for
Native Americans and LGBT people. It's shocking how blatant representatives are against minorities," McCracken said.

Not sure if this has been posted previously...
 

Kakenya Ntaiya made a deal with her father: She would undergo the traditional Maasai rite of passage of female circumcision if he would let her go to high school. Ntaiya tells the fearless story of continuing on to college, and of working with her village elders to build a school for girls in her community. It’s the educational journey of one that altered the destiny of 125 young women. (Filmed at TEDxMidAtlantic.)
Kakenya Ntaiya refused to accept the continued oppression of women in her Maasai village -- so she built a school that's shifting gender expectations in her community.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kakenya_nta...on__2013-03-07

Half of girls in South Sudan forced to marry
 

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The 17-year-old beaten to death for refusing to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather. The teen dragged by her family to be raped to force her into marrying an elderly man. They are among 39,000 girls forced into marriage every day around the world, sold like cattle to enrich their families.

More than one-third of all girls are married in 42 countries, according to the U.N. Population Fund, referring to females under the age of 18. The highest number of cases occurs in some of the poorest countries, the agency figures show, with the West African nation of Niger at the bottom of the list with 75 percent of girls married before they turn 18. In Bangladesh the figure is 66 percent and in Central African Republic and Chad it is 68 percent.

Most child marriages take place in South Asia and rural sub-Saharan Africa, according to the population fund. In terms of absolute numbers, India, because of its large population, has the most child marriages with child brides in 47 percent of all marriages.

Government statistics in South Sudan show half the girls there aged 15 to 19 are married, with some brides as young as 12 years old.

"The country's widespread child marriage exacerbates South Sudan's pronounced gender gaps in school enrollment, contributes to soaring maternal mortality rates, and violates the right of girls to be free from violence," says a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday ahead of International Women's Day on Friday.

The report blames child marriage in part for an appallingly low female school attendance, with girls making up only 39 percent of primary school students and 30 percent at secondary school.

A UNICEF report this month blamed child marriage in part for poor school attendance figures in Congo, where one in four children are not in school.

Child marriage is not common in South Africa, where prosecutors are investigating what charges can be brought in the case of a 13-year-old epileptic girl who was forced to leave school and marry a 57-year-old traditional healer in January.

Human Rights Watch said that in South Sudan there is a "near total lack of protection" for victims who try to resist marriage or to leave abusive marriages. It called for a coordinated government response including more training for police and prosecutors on girls' rights to protection.

Aguet N. of South Sudan, for example, was married to a 75-year-old man when she was 15 years old, according to testimony she gave to Human Rights Watch.

"This man went to my uncles and paid a dowry of 80 cows. I resisted the marriage. They threatened me," the report said. "They said, 'If you want your siblings to be taken care of, you will marry this man.' I said he is too old for me. They said, 'You will marry this old man whether you like it or not because he has given us something to eat.' They beat me so badly. They also beat my mother because she was against the marriage."

Reducing child marriages is key to achieving U.N. millennium goals to improve child mortality and reduce maternal deaths, according to Malawi's Health Minister Catherine Gotani Hara. She said teen pregnancies accounted for up to 30 percent of maternal deaths in that southern African country.

"By ending early marriages we can avert up to 30 percent of maternal deaths and also reduce the neonatal mortality rate," she said in a statement published by the World Health Organization.

Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are leading causes of death in young women aged 15 to 19 years in developing countries, according to Dr. Flavia Bustreo of the WHO.

Early marriages also will prevent South Sudan from achieving the goal of having women hold 25 percent of government jobs, said Lorna James Elia of the local Voices for Change advocacy group.

She said women activists grouped under a project "Girls, Not Brides," are trying to engage community leaders and traditional chiefs to end early and forced marriages.

Young brides also confront more violence, according to U.N. studies: Girls who marry before they are 18 are more likely to become victims of violence from their partner, with the risk increasing as the age gap between the couple gets larger.

Traditionally, poor families marry off young girls to reduce the family expenses on food, clothing and education. A big incentive can be the dowries older men will pay for a young bride, sometimes hundreds of cows.

Another South Sudan child bride, Ageer M., told Human Rights Watch, "The man I loved did not have cows and my uncles rejected him. My husband paid 120 cows. ... I refused him but they beat me badly and took me by force to him. The man forced me to have sex with him so I had to stay there."

In South Sudan, and some other countries, early marriage is seen as a way to protect girls from sexual violence and ensure that they do not bring dishonor on the family by getting pregnant out of wedlock.

Human Rights Watch called for South Sudan's government to clearly set 18 as the minimum age for marriage. But the country's minister for gender and child affairs, Agnes Kwaje Losuba, said the Child's Act already does that.

"We need to make sure this is implemented," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/half-girls-sou...140334618.html

Military sexual assault victims detail humiliation
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Victims of sexual assault and violence in the military told Congress Wednesday they're afflicted with a slow and uncaring system of justice that too often fails to hold perpetrators accountable and is fraught with institutional bias.

They told a Senate panel examining the military's handling of sexual assault cases that the military justice system is broken and urged Congress to make changes in the law that would stem the rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment that they said are pervasive in the service branches.

Rebekah Havrilla, a former Army sergeant, told the committee that she encountered a "broken" military criminal justice system after she was raped by another service member while serving in Afghanistan. Havrilla described suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and described how her case was eventually closed after senior commanders decided not to pursue charges.

"What we need is a military with a fair and impartial criminal justice system, one that is run by professional and legal experts, not unit commanders," Havrilla said.

BriGette McCoy, a former Army specialist and a Persian Gulf war veteran, said she was raped when she was 18 and at her first duty station. But she did not report it. Three years later, she reported being sexually harassed and asked for an apology and to be removed from working directly with the offender.

"They did remove me from his team and his formal apology consisted of him driving by me on base and saying 'sorry' out of his open car door window," McCoy told the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee.

The subcommittee's hearing comes as members of Congress are expressing outrage over an Air Force general's decision to reverse a guilty verdict in a sexual assault case that is spurring support for legislation that would prevent commanding officers from overturning rulings made by judges and juries at courts-martial proceedings.

Anu Bhagwati of the Service Women's Action Network told the panel that commanders are unable to make impartial decisions because they usually have a professional relationship with the accused and, often times, with the victim as well. Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps captain, said court-martial cases should be left in the hands of "trained, professional, disinterested prosecutors."

Under military law, a commander who convenes a court-martial is known as the convening authority and has the sole discretion to reduce or set aside guilty verdicts and sentences or to reverse a jury's verdict.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a review of Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin's decision to overturn the sexual assault conviction against Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, a former inspector general at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the chairwoman of the military personnel subcommittee, called the Wilkerson case "shocking" and promised to take a hard look at the military justice system. Nearly 2,500 sexual violence cases in the military services were reported in 2011, but only 240 made it to trial, Gillibrand said.

Wilkerson, a former inspector general at Aviano Air Base in Italy, was found guilty on Nov. 2 by a jury of military officers on charges of abusive sexual contact, aggravated sexual assault and three instances of conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. The victim was a civilian employee. Wilkerson was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissal from the service.

Wilkerson was at the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., until Feb. 26, when Franklin exercised his discretion as the convening authority. Franklin reviewed the case over a three-week period and concluded "that the entire body of evidence was insufficient to meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt," Hagel wrote in a March 7 letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

But Hagel told Boxer neither he nor the Air Force secretary is empowered to overrule Franklin, who is the commander of the 3rd Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Boxer said during testimony before the subcommittee that "immediate steps must be taken to prevent senior commanders from having the ability to unilaterally overturn a decision or sentence by a military court."

In the wake of Franklin's decision, Reps. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, and Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., introduced legislation Tuesday in the House of Representatives that would strip military commanders of the power to overturn legal decisions or lessen sentences. Their bill would amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice to take away the power of a convening authority to dismiss, commute, lessen, or order a rehearing after a panel or judge has found the accused guilty and rendered a punishment.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, plans to introduce legislation soon that would change the Uniform Code of Military Justice by preventing a convening authority from overturning a decision reached by a jury. The legislation also would require the convening authority to issue a written justification for any action.

http://news.yahoo.com/military-sexua...-politics.html

UN adopts plan to combat violence against women
 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries and liberal Western nations approved a U.N. blueprint to combat violence against women and girls, ignoring strong objections from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that it clashed with Islamic principles and sought to destroy the family.

After two weeks of tough and often contentious negotiations, 131 countries joined consensus Friday night on a compromise 17-page document that Michelle Bachelet, the head of the U.N. women's agency, called historic because it sets global standards for action to prevent and end "one of the gravest violations of human rights in the world, the violence that is committed against women and girls."

On Wednesday, the Brotherhood, which has emerged as the most powerful political faction in Egypt since the 2011 uprising, lashed out at the anticipated document for advocating sexual freedoms for women and the right to abortion "under the guise of sexual and reproductive rights." It called the title, on eliminating and preventing all forms of violence against women and girls, "deceitful."

Last week, Egypt proposed an amendment to the text saying that each country is sovereign and can implement the document in accordance with its own laws and customs, a provision strongly opposed by many countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

It was dropped in the final compromise drafted by the meeting's chair. Instead, the final text urges all countries "to strongly condemn all forms of violence against women and girls and to refrain from invoking any custom, tradition and religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination."

When countries were polled on their views on the final draft, there was fear among the declaration's supporters that Egypt would oppose it, which would block the consensus required for adoption.

The head of Egypt's delegation, politician and diplomat Mervat Tallawy, surprised and delighted the overwhelming majority of delegates and onlookers in the crowded U.N. conference room when she ignored the Brotherhood and announced that Egypt would join consensus.

"International soldarity is needed for women's empowerment and preventing this regressive mood, whether in the developing countries or developed, or in the Middle East in particular," Tallawy told two reporters afterwards. "It's a global wave of conservatism, of repression against women, and this paper is a message that if we can get together, hold power together, we can be a strong wave against this conservatism."

Tallawy, who is president of the National Council for Women-Egypt, said she has told this to Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi, who came from the Muslim Brotherhood,

"I believe in women's cause. I don't take money from the government. I work voluntarily. If they want to kick me out they can. But I will not change my belief in women," she said. "Women are the slaves of this age. This is unacceptable, and particularly in our region."

A number of Muslim and Catholic countries including Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Holy See and Honduras expressed reservations about elements of the text — but Libya was the only country to dissociate itself from the final document though it did not block consensus.

Libya's top cleric raised similar concerns to the Muslim Brotherhood, rejecting the document for violating Islamic teachings. The Libyan delegation objected to paragraphs calling for sex education for all adolescents and youth, with appropriate direction from parents, and for priority to programs for girls' education so they can take responsibility for their own lives, "including access to a sustainable livelihood."

At the start of the meeting, Bachelet said data from the World Health Organization and other research shows that an average of 40 percent — and up to 70 per cent of women in some countries — face violence in their lifetimes, and she pointed to recent high-profile attacks on women in India and Pakistan. She said Friday that during the two-week session "countless women and girls around the world have suffered violence."

When the Commission on the Status of Women took up violence against women a decade ago, governments were unable to reach agreement on a final document because of differences over sex education, a woman's right to reproductive health, and demands for an exception for traditional, cultural and religious practices.

The final document approved Friday reaffirms that women and men have the right to enjoy all human rights "on an equal basis," recommits governments to comprehensive sex education, calls for sexual and reproductive health services such as emergency contraception and safe abortion for victims of violence, and calls on government to criminalize violence against women and punish gender-related killings. But it dropped references to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Terri Robl, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, called the agreement an important step but said the text is "only a beginning." She expressed regret at its failure to state that ending violence must apply to all women, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, or to refer specifically to "intimate partner violence."

While the document is not legally binding, Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said "it sets a certain standard by which all member states can monitor their performance and can be monitored by others."

http://news.yahoo.com/un-adopts-plan...012129730.html

Female Genital Mutilation Replaced With Alternative Rite in Kenya
 

The Maasai tribe of Kenya has shown the traditional rite of passage for girls of female circumcision can be replaced with a new tradition.

The Alternative Rite of Passage campaign began with Africa Schools of Kenya (ASK) in the Esiteti region of Kenya last year. The Maasai of Esiteti are a model for the rest of the country and the continent, says Teri Gabrielsen, ASK executive director.

ASK has launched a 42-day crowdsourcing campaign to raise funds for the expansion of Alternative Rite of Passage.

The first ceremony was held in August 2012 with 52 Maasai girls becoming women without “cutting.”

Gabrielsen recalled the words of Nelly, a 14-year-old Maasai girl.

“I was going to be circumcised, but I told my dad all the negative things about FGM [female genital mutilation] and my dad agreed. He said, ‘I won’t circumcise you and I wont circumcise your sisters either.’”

Three times a year girls come home from boarding schools and are at risk of being circumcised or married off.

Approximately 150 girls will reach puberty this year in Esiteti, and ASK will hold three ceremonies each year. The two-day alternative rite ceremony takes place in one of the classrooms at the Esiteti School.

The goal of ASK’s campaign is to raise $50,000 to sustain Alternative Rite of Passage programs for at least five years, establishing the groundwork for tribes to carry them on independently.

“ASK has developed many educational programs for the community of Esiteti, but never have we been involved with a program as exciting as this one,” Gabrielsen said. “In the eyes of the Esiteti community, once the pilot program was in place, their girls were seen as adults and safeguarded from FGM.”

Phides Mukishoi, head mistress of ASK’s Esiteti School, said she is proud to be a part of ASK.

“I am happy to be training and teaching the girls about health and education,” Mukishoi said. “When they look at me, they see a Maasai woman who is educated, and it makes them proud to see me care for them.”

“I value Phides for her dedication to working with the girls every day and night, living away from her own family in not-so-suitable dwellings in order to protect and work with the girls,” Gabrielsen said. “She is happy to do the work.”

----------------------------------------------------------------

Maasai Women End Traditional Female Circumcision

Two-day ceremony marks end of genital mutilation for 52 young Maasai girls

In a traditional two-day ceremony in Kenya, the Maasai, one of the oldest cultures in Africa, changed the fate of 52 young girls in a historic alternative rite of passage performed without female circumcision.

Maasai men and women who accepted the new ceremony took a monumental leap forward in health and education for their culture, causing reactions across the globe.

Three Maasai women were selected by the African Schools of Kenya (ASK) to talk with the girls about issues ranging from their basic human rights as young women to reasons for using birth control.

Meals were prepared and delivered to the girls, and they stayed together overnight in the classroom on Aug. 27.

“There was no holding back on the information given to the 52 girls attending the first Alternative Rites of Passage without cutting,” said Teri Gabrielsen, founder of ASK, which funds educational courses in Africa.

The 52 girls, including the chief’s own daughters, paraded through their village early Saturday morning wearing their traditional all-black dresses and crowns, slowly walking to the school room for the very first two-day ARP ceremony.

Special recognition was given to the four cutters: They each received a milking goat for their willingness to participate in the ceremony and for supporting the “non-circumcision” of the girls.

On day two, the mothers helped their daughters get dressed in their traditional ceremonial dresses and crowns. The two-day ARP ended with ceremonial dancing, a feast, and the presentation of certificates acknowledging each girl entering womanhood without being circumcised.

Female circumcision, widely known as female genital mutilation (FGM), is illegal in Kenya and is punishable by law, yet it is still practiced in many countries worldwide.

Many regions in Africa and some countries in Asia and the Middle East widely practice the ritualistic procedure, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Traditionally, young women who had not yet been circumcised were ostracized by their peers. The women who had endured the unlawful procedure were considered acceptable members of society and were deemed suitable for marriage, as it increased their value in the community because the procedure is considered to be customary.

Instruments traditionally used to perform the cut are sharp metal tools, knives, and other crude objects, and the procedure is usually not carried out by trained medical professionals. The effects of FGM can severely burden the women and often bring on medical complications, placing additional obstacles on the health services and systems in their countries.

The physical pain resulting from the practice has immeasurable psychological impact on these young girls, who look to the adults as well as their peers for solutions. This year, educated Maasai women are avoiding the risk of the physical and psychological damage associated with female circumcision by participating in the first ARP of its kind.

Psychological damage of FGM

Tonte Ikoluba is a tribal descendant of a family who practiced the age-old custom of circumcision in Nigeria. She is from the Ijaw tribe and is now a social worker living in New York. Ikoluba participated in the ritualistic rites of passage at the age of 13 with great trepidation.

“I was 13 years old when I was circumcised, and both of my parents as well as my grandmother were with me and they prepared me for the traditional ceremony,” said Ikoluba.

“I knew it was something that had to be done, but I was scared because some people died or got very sick afterward. I was told by my family that I could not be a full woman until my male part was cut off.

“Some people ran away and so I wanted to run away, but my mother assured me that I should not be scared. She said she would hold my hand and that I would be okay.”

Ikoluba described her experience of being circumcised, saying that while she was being cut, she felt as if she was going to die. She described the complications that came after the procedure.

“It was very painful to urinate after the cutting. I had infections and fever and lots of nightmares. I later found out that a lot of girls did not go through with it and they turned out to be okay,” said Ikoluba.

“I felt tricked. I was told I was going to be a complete woman and then found out they actually made me incomplete. I am now missing something important—my womanhood.”

According to H. Scott, a registered nurse and maternity nurse in New York City, “FGM is a horror and the more enlightenment shed upon this ritual, the better. I have had my share of labor patients who have suffered this atrocity and they suffer that much more during delivery when their scar tissue tears. Some have to be c-sectioned. … Makes my heart cry.”

As the suffering of young women continues to surface in cultural hamlets across the globe, studies and personal opinion continue to find no sensible reason for female circumcision, considering it to be an act of violence against women.

According to the WHO website, it is estimated that 100 million–140 million women and girls have already been subjected to some form of FGM.

Ikoluba is a resident volunteer for the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation (CAGeM) in New York City. New York State has the second largest population of FGM victims next to California, according to the CAGeM website.

“Female mutilation is against the law, but people are still dying from it,” said Ikoluba. “Just earlier this year, one girl died from the bleeding and her sister ran away from our village to come to a CAGeM shelter because she was next in line. They just ignore the law. Nobody goes to jail, nobody gets arrested.

“I recently attended a conference in New York hosted by CAGeM . I heard them talk about a free surgery and hospital service for victims of FGM. I did some research on my own and found that I could regain feeling and reduce the pain by having the surgery. Until then, I never knew I would be able to feel complete again. I know I can never be 100 percent complete, but I want to be as close to it as possible.”

Ikoluba applied for the waiting list for the surgery. She did some fundraising with the Restoring the Rose Walkathon in New York, and she was put on the waiting list in December.

With the influx of immigrants that come to the United States from countries that continue the practice, girls who become United States citizens are at risk of family pressure to perform their native cultural rites of passage.

A study in the United Kingdom is mapping the current situation and trends of FGM in 27 European Union member states and Croatia. The study was launched this year upon the request of EU commissioner Viviane Reding, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality website (EIGE).

The triumphant stand of the young Maasai girls may send a message of change to families who are weighing the facts against the myths and current findings about the practice in their own rites of passage ceremonies.

Gabrielsen of ASK, Maasai elder and director of ASK chief James Ole Kamente, local grassroots organization Voices of Hope, and a resident nurse from Loitokitok General Hospital in Kenya all fully participated in an ARP ceremony, leading in making a change in the current practice of female circumcision and the eradication of the practice entirely.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/worl...on-299742.html

Rape Culture
 

Came across these images... it doesn't take much to deconstruct them in terms of how women are situated and portrayed. These are mainstream fashion ads.

Hello rape culture.

http://rantagainsttherandom.files.wo...pg?w=490&h=306

Exactly!! These are mainstream images that depict women ( and parts of women, that's the other thing: how often women are portrayed in pieces/parts, disconnected from the whole) in varying states of victimization. They are either unconscious or prone, suggesting ( and reinforcing the norm of) total passivity or victimization.

i've been feeling really isolated in my "is it just me, or is that FUCKED up?!?!" moments. :blink:

Once a landlord's serf, a Pakistani woman enters election fray
 

HYDERABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - When Veero Kolhi made the asset declaration required of candidates for Pakistan's May elections, she listed the following items: two beds, five mattresses, cooking pots and a bank account with life savings of 2,800 rupees ($28).

While she may lack the fortune that is the customary entry ticket to Pakistani politics, Kolhi can make a claim that may resonate more powerfully with poor voters than the wearily familiar promises of her rivals.

For Kolhi embodies a new phenomenon on the campaign trail - she is the first contestant to have escaped the thrall of a feudal-style land owner who forced his workers to toil in conditions akin to modern-day slavery.

"The landlords are sucking our blood," Kolhi told Reuters at her one-room home of mud and bamboo on the outskirts of the southern city of Hyderabad.

"Their managers behave like pimps - they take our daughters and give them to the landlords."

To her supporters, Kolhi's stand embodies a wider hope that the elections - Pakistan's first transition between elected civilian governments - will be a step towards a more progressive future for a country plagued by Islamic militancy, frequent political gridlock and the worsening persecution of minorities.

To skeptics, the fact that Kolhi has no realistic chance of victory is merely further evidence that even the landmark May 11 vote will offer only a mirage of change to a millions-strong but largely invisible rural underclass.

Yet there is no doubt that hers is a remarkable journey.

A sturdy matriarch in her mid-50s who has 20 grandchildren, Kolhi -- a member of Pakistan's tiny Hindu minority -- is the ultimate outsider in an electoral landscape dominated by wealthy male candidates fluent in the art of back room deals.

Possessed of a ready, raucous laugh, but unable to write more than her name, Kolhi was once a "bonded laborer," the term used in Pakistan for an illegal but widely prevalent form of contemporary serfdom in which entire families toil for years to pay often spurious debts.

Since making her escape in the mid-1990s, Kolhi has lobbied the police and courts to release thousands of others from the pool of indebted workers in her native Sindh province, the vast majority of whom are fellow Hindus.

On April 5, Kolhi crossed a new threshold in her own odyssey when she stood on the steps of a colonial-era courthouse in Hyderabad and brandished a document officials had just issued, authorizing her to run for the provincial assembly.

With no rival party to back her, Kolhi's independent run may make barely a dent at the ballot box in Sindh, a stronghold of President Asif Ali Zardari's ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

But her beat-the-odds bravado has lit a flame for those who adore her the most: families she has helped liberate from lives as vassals.

"Once I only drank black tea, but now I am free I can afford tea with milk," said Thakaro Bheel, who escaped from his landlord a decade ago and now lives in Azad Nagar, a community of former bonded laborers on the edge of Hyderabad. "These days I make my own decisions. All that is thanks to Veero."

BAREFOOT IN THE NIGHT

Like millions of the landless, Kolhi's ordeal began a generation ago when drought struck her home in the Thar desert bordering India, forcing her parents to move to a lusher belt of Sindh in search of work harvesting sunflowers or chilies.

Kolhi was married as a teenager but her husband fell into debt and she was forced to work 10-hour days picking cotton, gripped by a fear that their landlord might choose a husband for Ganga, her daughter, who would soon be ten years old.

One night Kolhi crept past armed guards and walked barefoot to a village to seek help. Her husband was beaten as punishment for her escape, Kolhi said, but she managed to contact human rights activists who wrote to police on her behalf.

Officers were reluctant to confront the landlord but they relented after Kolhi staged a three-day hunger strike at their station. More than 40 people were freed.

"I was very scared, but I hoped that I could win freedom for myself and my family," said Kolhi. "That's why I kept on running."

Now Kolhi spends her days careering along dirt roads in a battered Suzuki minivan decorated with stickers of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Latin American revolutionary, on her quest for votes. Her only luxury: Gold Leaf, a brand of cigarette. Her only campaign equipment: an old megaphone.

While Kolhi clearly enjoys meeting supporters - greeting women by placing two palms on their bowed heads in a traditional gesture of protection - she has still only reached a fraction of her constituency's 133,000 voters.

The favorite remains Sharjeel Memon, an influential businessman and PPP stalwart. Memon was not available for comment.

DAUGHTERS FOR SALE

Despite the struggle Kolhi faces, the fact she is able to run at all has emboldened campaigners for workers' rights in Sindh.

Even remote areas of the province have not been immune to the influence of a more assertive media and judiciary that have reshaped national politics during tumultuous years following a 1999 army coup and a transition to democracy in 2008.

"The landlords are afraid of court cases so they do not abuse and torture people as much as before," said Lalee Kolhi, another former bonded laborer turned activist, who is no relation to Veero Kolhi.

Yet in some areas, land owners can still exploit a symbiotic relationship with the bureaucracy, police and courts to deprive workers of rights and attempt to sway their votes.

Although Veero Kolhi works with a local organization that says it has helped rescue some 26,000 indebted workers in the last 12 years, several estimates put the total figure of bonded laborers in Pakistan at roughly eight million.

Not all landlords are tyrants, but the arrival last month of an extended family of 63 share-croppers at Azad Nagar, the village for freed workers, provided a glimpse of the timeworn tricks they use to ensure debts keep on growing.

Lakhi Bheel produced a scrap torn from an exercise book that declared he had accumulated obligations of 99,405 rupees after toiling for three years.

Bheel said he had decided to make a break for freedom after the land owner threatened to sell the family's daughters in return for bride prices.

"I didn't eat meat once in three years," Bheel said, adding that shotgun-toting guards had sometimes roughed up workers. "We had to pay half the salaries of the men who were beating us."

Kolhi's supporters say the only way to end the oppression in Sindh would be to give destitute workers their own plots of land. But as long as the feudal class retains political influence, talk of land reform remains taboo.

Undaunted, Kolhi -- bedecked in a garland of red roses and jasmine -- launched her shot at office with an ultimatum.

"First we will ask the landlords to obey the law, and if they refuse we will take them to court," she said, her voice rising with emotion. "We will continue our struggle until the last bonded laborer is freed."

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-once-l...034349719.html

New Delhi: The shocking rape case of a five-year-old girl child in Delhi has shamed the nation once again.
 

As news of the beastly attack on the girl came out, a "deeply disturbed" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the "shameful incident" has "once again reiterated the need for society to look deep within and work to root out the evil of rape and other such crimes from our midst".

The news once again bought angry protesters out of their homes. Many massed at the hospital where the girl was warded since Wednesday after her family rescued her from the house of her abductor in Gandhi Nagar in East Delhi.

When the traumatised girl was on Friday evening shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from Swami Dayanand Hospital for better medical attention, demonstrators gathered there too and shouted slogans against police and demanded death for the accused.

Delhi, described as India's "rape capital" has seen over 390 rapes cases in three months as compared to 152 cases in the corresponding period last year.

A doctor said he and his colleagues had never seen such a brutal rape. They said a bottle and pieces of candle were found thrust into the private parts of the girl.

Anger against Delhi Police mounted after the girl's father, a mason, said they failed to even register his complaint when his daughter went missing.

"We went to police to register a FIR (First Information Report) but they refused. They never tried to find her, and instead drove us away," said the distraught man.

He said when the family finally found the girl Wednesday morning after hearing her screams, a policeman offered the family Rs 2,000 to keep mum.

Meanwhile, two Delhi Police officials were suspended for "misbehaving" with the family of the five-year-old rape victim, while an assistant commissioner of police (ACP) was suspended for slapping a girl protestor, said police on Friday.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation...ed_843193.html

Second man arrested for India girl rape, chaos in parliament
 

*trigger warning*


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police arrested a second man on Monday in connection with the rape and torture of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi and parliament was adjourned twice amid an uproar about the crime which has rekindled popular fury at widespread sexual violence.

Media reported several other attacks on children over the weekend, including that of a nine-year old girl in the north-eastern state of Assam, who had her throat slit after being gang-raped, TV channels said.

Brutal sex crimes are common in India, which has a population of 1.2 billion. New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.

But most such crimes go unreported and justice is slow, according to social activists, who say successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women and children.

Activists planned a fourth day of street action amid heavy security in Delhi after protesters tussled with police and tried to reach the homes of India's leaders at the weekend. The protesters are calling for Delhi's police chief to resign.

The lower house of parliament was adjourned twice after opposition politicians rushed into the building, some demanding discussion on the rape case. Others were protesting against corruption and other issues.

"Though parliament has recently passed tougher legislation to prevent rapes, the evil has not abated and such incidents are still on the rise throughout the country," House Speaker Meira Kumar said before the house was adjourned.

The upper house of parliament was due to hold a debate on violence against women in the afternoon.

http://news.yahoo.com/second-man-arr...074552630.html

i wish i had not read that.

Missing children in India
 

NEW DELHI (AP) — A child disappears. Police are called. Nothing happens.

Child rights activists say the rape last week of a 5-year-old girl is just the latest case in which Indian police failed to take urgent action on a report of a missing child.

More than 90,000 children go missing in India each year; more than 34,000 are never found. Some parents say they lost crucial time because police wrongly dismissed their missing children as runaways, refused to file reports or treated the cases as nuisances.

Formal police complaints were registered in only one-sixth of missing child cases in 2011, said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer with Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement. He said police resist registering cases because they want to keep crime figures low, and that parents are often too poor to bribe them to reconsider.

Ribhu said the first few hours after a child goes missing are the most crucial. "The police can cordon off nearby areas, issue alerts at railway and bus stations, and step up vigilance to catch the kidnappers," he said.

Activists say delays let traffickers move children to neighboring states, where the police don't have jurisdiction. There is no national database of missing children that state police can reference.

Police have insisted that most of missing children are runways fleeing grinding poverty.

"It's easy enough to blame the police for not finding the children. Some of the parents do not even possess a photograph of the child. Or they will come up with a years-old picture. It becomes difficult when there's not even a photograph to work with," Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said last month when asked about complaints on police inaction in investigating case of missing children.

Many cases involved poor migrant construction workers who move from site to site around the city, Bhagat said.

India's Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath told Parliament last month that the problem of missing children had assumed "alarming" proportions. The National Crime Records Bureau reported that 34,406 missing children were never found in 2011, up from 18,166 in 2009.

Activists say some children are trafficked and forced to beg on the streets. Some work on farms or factories as forced labor and others have their organs harvested and sold. The activists say young girls are pushed into the sex trade or sold for marriage.

"The government is just not ready to confront the issue of trafficking or missing children. And this gets reflected in the apathy of the police in dealing with cases of missing children," said Ribhu, the lawyer.

In 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation said at least 815 criminal gangs were kidnapping children for begging, prostitution or ransom.

The Save the Childhood Movement said police have not cracked a single one of those syndicates.

Shantha Sinha, who heads the government's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, acknowledged that much remained to be done to make police take cases of missing children seriously.

http://news.yahoo.com/indian-girls-r...103156990.html

Another 5 year old girl raped in India. This one dies.
 

* Trigger Warning*

5-year-old girl has died after being raped in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, an official said Tuesday, in the latest in a series of brutal attacks that have sparked outrage in the country.

The girl suffered cardiac arrest and died late Monday at a hospital in Nagpur city in neighbouring Maharashtra state where she was being treated for injuries from the April 18 assault, said Bharat Yadav, collector for Seoni district, where the attack occurred.

Two men have been arrested in connection with the attack, he said.

The girl was lured by one of the men to a farm, where she was then raped by the other man, who was a friend of her parents, Yadav said. The parents, poor construction workers, were at work when the attack occurred, he said.

Ravi Manadiar, an administrator at the hospital, said the girl suffered a brain injury when the men tried to smother her cries and was in a coma from April 20 until she died.

In Nagpur, the mother of the girl was inconsolable.

“The court should give them the strictest punishment ever,” she sobbed Tuesday.

“These men should be burned alive so that the whole world will see how such criminals ought to be punished,” she said, wiping her tears with the corner of her sari.

About 40 supporters of the opposition Congress party held a rally in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, to protest what they said was a rise in violence against women in the state.

They burned an effigy of the state’s top elected official, Chief Minister Shivraj SIngh Chouhan, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Earlier this month, another 5-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped and tortured by two men who then abandoned her in a locked room in New Delhi. She is still recovering at a hospital in the city.

Police refused to register a case when the girl’s parents reported that their daughter was missing. Hundreds of people protested outside police headquarters in New Delhi for three days, angry over allegations of police inaction and indifference to the parents’ complaints.

Indian media have begun to report sexual assaults more aggressively since the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December. That attack triggered outrage across India about the treatment of women in the country, and spurred the government to pass tougher laws for crimes against women, including the death penalty for repeat offenders or for rapes that lead to the victim’s death.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle11628161/

A year since Delhi rape, women see key changes - its a start
 

NEW DELHI (AP) — The phones were ringing nonstop in the tiny, windowless office in downtown New Delhi, with urgent appeals from desperate women.

Indian Rape Law Offers Desperate Last Resort The Wall Street Journal
Indian magazine editor arrested on sexual assault charges Reuters

One caller, speaking in whispers, said her husband beat her regularly because she failed to bring in enough dowry. Another woman said her teenage daughter was being stalked by a neighbor and needed legal advice.

Established in the wake of last year's gang rape and murder of a young New Delhi woman, the government hotline is part of a wave of change since the case forced the country to confront its appalling treatment of women.

The victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was heading home with a male friend after an evening showing of the movie "Life of Pi" when six men lured them onto a private bus. With no one else in sight, they beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries.

The pair were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later.

Indian media named her "Nirbhaya," or "fearless," as rape victims cannot be identified under Indian law. She became a rallying cry for tens of thousands protesting the treatment of women.

New laws have made stalking, voyeurism and sexual harassment a crime. There is now a fast-track court for rape cases. In some ways, the case cracked a cultural taboo surrounding discussion of sexual violence in a country where rape is often viewed as a woman's personal shame to bear.

But for so many women in India's urban centers like New Delhi and Mumbai, the new laws have not made the streets any safer. And in such a conservative country with patriarchal traditions, it will take more than a year to erode generations of devastating sexism.

"Out on the streets, I find men staring at me, passing lewd comments," said Barnali Barman, a 23-year-old business executive in New Delhi. "I find people following me as I get down from the train and walk to my office."

Nirbhaya's father told The Associated Press he takes comfort in the changes his daughter's suffering have brought.

But, he said, "not a day passes when we don't shed tears."

"Our tears are not for her death, but for what she suffered," he said in an interview from the family's three-room apartment in the outer suburbs of New Delhi.

"We just can't forget how she suffered at the hands of these men," he added, his voice thickening. On the wall hung a faded piece of cloth — an award for bravery given posthumously to his daughter.

His wife, a pale shadow, backs out of the room at any mention of her daughter.

The assailants were tried relatively quickly in a country where sexual assault cases often languish for years. Four defendants were sentenced to death. Another hanged himself in prison, though his family insists he was killed. And an 18-year-old who was a juvenile at the time of the attack was sentenced to three years in a reform home.

In India, the arrival of a daughter is a tragic event in many families. Illegal sex-selective abortions over decades have left the country with a ratio of 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys. Girls get less medical care and less education.

Still, in the last two decades as the Indian economy boomed, rising education levels and inflation have led to larger numbers of women joining the work force. But the deep-rooted social attitudes toward women have remained largely unchanged.

The result is that women's complaints of rape and sexual abuse remain drastically underreported. Families often do not make a police complaint to avoid the stigma that befalls the victim and her family.

"The criminals know that the Indian police and courts will take 10 years or more to prosecute them," said Tanpreet Singh, a 26-year-old New Delhi businessman. "The system is corrupt and many succeed in bribing their way out."

For all the attention given to Nirbhaya's case, daily indignities and abuse continue unabated for many women, particularly the poor.

"Indian society has to change its mindset about women," said Chaitali, a field worker with Jagori, a women's rights group, who goes by one name. "That is something that will take more than a year. If we are lucky it will take a couple of generations."

The women's hotline aims to speed things up. On a recent evening, six women wearing headsets sat at computer terminals, speaking in gentle tones to agitated callers.

"Most of the calls are from women who are suffering some kind of abuse — sexual harassment, domestic violence, stalking, or obscene phone calls," said Khadijah Faruqui, a veteran women's rights activist who heads the helpline project.

In cases of domestic violence, or where there is imminent danger to the caller's life, the helpline informs the police, or women's groups nearby, so that they can reach the scene and intervene. The helpline also offers legal advice and follow-up calls.

In a little less than a year, the helpline has handled more than half a million distress calls from women in trouble, Faruqui said.

Activists say one outcome of the public debate is that women are coming forward to register complaints against sexual abuse.

There has been a surge in the number of rapes being reported: Between January and October this year, there have been 1,330 rapes reported in Delhi and its suburbs, compared with the 706 for the whole of 2012, according to government figures.

Several recent, high-profile cases also suggest women feel more comfortable going public with reports of sexual assaults — an important breakthrough in a country where men feel emboldened to commit crimes because they know women face the stigma.

Last month, the high-profile editor of an Indian magazine known for exposing abuses of power was arrested after a young female colleague accused him of sexually assaulting her in a hotel elevator during a conference.

The allegations against Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal have touched a nerve in part because he is the face of a publication that has pushed Indian society to vanquish corruption and confront the scourge of sexual violence.

Women's rights also took on unprecedented significance in India's state elections last week, with the three main parties adopting a "womanifesto" — a list of six priority actions to protect the freedom and safety of women in the capital.

"Today, every political party is promising safety and security as the first commitment to women in the country," said Ranjana Kumari, a women's rights activist with New Delhi's Centre for Social Research. "This was something which they never thought was necessary."

Kumari said there are glimmers of hope as women become aware that they no longer have to put up with sexual harassment.

"Instead of a fearful silence," she said, "there is an openness without the inhibitions of social shame."

___
http://news.yahoo.com/since-delhi-ra...074424448.html

Yemen - South West Asia
 

This has bothered me ever since I read it on the news about 3 months ago.
I must confess, I did not check to see if someone else had already posted
about this little girl's death. A mere child.

I cannot say on this forum how I truly feel in detail about this and what needs to be done.

Breaks my heart to think of what happened to this girl child. Takes a sick freak of a man to do something this horrible to an innocent. And no one could ever convince me he did not know he was killing her - not in a million years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SANAA (Reuters) - An eight-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal bleeding on her wedding night after marrying a man five times her age, a social activist and two local residents said, in a case that has caused an outcry in the media and revived debate about child brides.

Arwa Othman, head of Yemen House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner, said the girl, identified only as Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old man late last week in the town of Meedi in Hajjah province in northwestern Yemen.

"On the wedding night and after intercourse, she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death," Othman told Reuters. "They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn't save her life."

Othman said authorities had not taken any action against the girl's family or her husband.

A local security official in the provincial town of Haradh denied any such incident had taken place. He did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

But two Meedi residents contacted by Reuters confirmed the incident and said that local tribal chiefs had tried to cover up the incident when news first broke, warning a local journalist against covering the story.

Many poor families in Yemen marry off young daughters to save on the costs of bringing up a child and earn extra money from the dowry given to the girl.

A U.N. report released in January revealed the extent of the country's poverty, saying that 10.5 million of Yemen's 24 million people lacked sufficient food supplies, and 13 million had no access to safe water and basic sanitation.

Human Rights Watch urged Yemen's government in December 2011 to ban marriages of girls under the age of 18, warning it deprived child brides of education and harmed their health.

Quoting United Nations and government data, HRW said nearly 14 percent of Yemeni girls were married before the age of 15 and 52 percent before the age of 18. The group said many Yemeni child brides-to-be are kept from school when they reach puberty.

Discussions on the issue were shelved by political turmoil following protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 that led to his ouster.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; editing by Mike Collett-Whi

Controversial Morocco rape law axed.

Last updated Jan 23, 2014, 5:37 AM PST

BBC NEWS

Violence against women and gender inequality are the subjects of frequent demonstrations in Rabat.

The parliament of Morocco has unanimously amended an article of the penal code that allowed rapists of underage girls to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims.

The move follows intensive lobbying by activists for better protection of young rape victims. The amendment has been welcomed by rights groups.

Article 475 of the penal code generated unprecedented public criticism.

It was first proposed by Morocco's Islamist-led government a year ago.

But the issue came to public prominence in 2012 when 16-year-old Amina Filali killed herself after being forced to marry her rapist.

She accused Moustapha Fellak, who at the time was about 25, of physical abuse after they married, which he denies. After seven months of marriage, Ms Filali swallowed rat poison.

The case shocked many people in Morocco, received extensive media coverage and sparked protests in the capital Rabat and other cities.

Article 475 provides for a prison term of one to five years for anyone who "abducts or deceives" a minor "without violence, threat or fraud, or attempts to do so".

But the second clause of the article specifies that when the victim marries the perpetrator, "he can no longer be prosecuted except by persons empowered to demand the annulment of the marriage and then only after the annulment has been proclaimed".

This effectively prevents prosecutors from independently pursuing rape charges.

In conservative rural parts of Morocco, an unmarried girl or woman who has lost her virginity - even through rape - is considered to have dishonoured her family and no longer suitable for marriage. Some families believe that marrying the rapist addresses these problems.

While welcoming the move, rights groups say that much still needs to be done to promote gender equality, protect women and outlaw child marriage in the North African country.

"It's a very important step. But it's not enough," Fatima Maghnaoui, who heads a group supporting women victims of violence, told the AFP news agency.

"We are campaigning for a complete overhaul of the penal code for women."

BBC © 2014

.....
 

"The television show “Democracy Now” had a heartbreaking segment Friday about a teenager whose school accused her of lewd conduct” and sent her to disciplinary school after she reported her rape."


http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ra...n-texas-2014-1


The hatred and violence against girls and women each and every day will never stop with only women and a handful of men giving a damn.

This.....
 

LINCOLN — She made an agonizing decision two years ago to give birth to a child who was conceived during a rape.

Today, the 20-year-old Norfolk, Neb., woman has a beautiful toddler, but a different sort of agony. Recently a judge granted child visitation rights to the man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her.

http://www.omaha.com/article/2014012...hts-restricted

And the hits just keep on coming...

This is sickening.

Which 31 states?

Just to be clear...

In Islamic societies, it is still custom for girls/women to remain virgins until they marry and for a girl who is no longer a virgin to be considered 'spoilt goods'. Although most families would indeed feel a sense of shame if one of their females were raped, PART of the reason for their agreeing to her marrying her rapist would be to ensure that she was taken care of in the future. I know it sounds heartless, but you have to understand that even today, in most Islamic societies it is the men who take care of the women and that with no social welfare system to turn to, a girl is reliant first on her father, brothers (if no father is present), and then husband for her every need. Add to that the fact that many rape cases involve a member of the extended family as opposed to an absolute stranger, then I can understand, kind of, why families often view marriage between the victim and the rapist as the only viable solution. (This view is based on over 20 years living amongst Muslims - both liberal and conservative - in the Middle East.)

Words

Thank you for all the background Kobi!

We all need to get back to our radical change roots and take back our personal power and decision making rights over our lives, bodies, children, families etc.

This is making me nauseous.

What can I do today Kobi, to create a change in my state?

I saw this on tumblr, but it can't be true. Does anyone know if it is? Its almost to infuriating to consider.


https://24.media.tumblr.com/f3e4a9e3...6speo1_500.jpg

Yes, he is facing 10 years. He is not yet convicted that I could find.


Steubenville Rapist Released While Hacker Who Helped Expose Him Faces 10-Year Sentence

By Matt Essert January 9, 2014 36


Sometimes justice is not very just. Deric Lostutter, the 26-year-old hacker who went by the online alias, KYAnonymous, is facing charges after an FBI raid on his house in April for what the the agency is claiming is his illegal role in obtaining tweets and Instagram posts related to rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville last year. Meanwhile, one of the two rapists Lostutter helped expose was just released from prison 10 months after being sentenced to one year in prison.

Whether or not Lostutter did any actual hacking is unclear (the social media posts were obtained legally), but the fact that he could be facing more prison time than the rapists themselves is appalling.

Although he initially denied his involvement, Lostutter eventually admitted to being the masked man in a video that threatened action against the players involved in the girl's rape and the school officials involved in the cover up and that included the heinous tweets and Instagram posts he had obtained. The video was posted to the high school football team's website and helped bring national attention to this story. A highly disturbing cellphone video (WARNING: graphic language) of students joking about the victim was also released by Anonymous, but there's no apparent connection to Lostutter.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/78...-year-sentence

Pakistan: Slain woman's husband killed 1st wife
 

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The husband of a woman stoned to death in Pakistan killed his first wife four years ago, police and relatives said Thursday, a shocking twist both showing how complicated justice can be and how dangerous life is for women in the country.

A mob of family members, including her father and brothers, beat 25-year-old Farzana Parveen to death Tuesday with bricks stolen from a construction site in the eastern city of Lahore as onlookers stood by, authorities said. Initially, many in Pakistan offered their condolences to Parveen's husband, Mohammed Iqbal, after the killing as the family apparently didn't want her to marry him.

But Thursday, Zulfiqar Hameed, deputy inspector general for Punjab police, told The Associated Press that authorities arrested Iqbal for the October 2009 killing of his first wife, Ayesha Bibi. Hameed could not offer details about the slaying, but said the case was withdrawn after a family member forgave him.

Under Pakistani law, those charged with a slaying can see their criminal case dropped if family members of the deceased forgive them or accept so-called "blood money" offerings over the crime.

Reached by the AP at his village near the town of Jaranwala, Iqbal said he could not speak because he was praying at his second wife's grave. He did not respond to other requests for comment after that.

One of Iqbal's five children, Aurang Zeb, said his father killed his mother in 2009 over a dispute. He said his father was arrested but the children later forgave him and the case was withdrawn.

"We don't want to discuss whatever had happened in the past, but I confirm that we had forgiven our father Iqbal," Zeb told the AP, adding that his father was in a state of shock after his second wife's death.

Two of Iqbal's cousins also said he killed his first wife but said he had been forgiven by one of his sons.

Pakistan, home to some 180 million people, is an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, and the majority of its citizens long have been fairly conservative. Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, and hundreds of women are murdered every year in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior that is perceived to bring shame upon her family.

Activists say "blood money" offerings often mean that crimes against women by their spouses or other family members are ignored.

Pakistan has one of the highest rates of violence against women globally. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honor killings in 2013.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned Farzana Parveen's slaying in a statement Thursday, calling it "intolerable." He called on authorities in Punjab province to find the remaining culprits.

Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, also strongly condemned the slaying, saying she didn't want to call it an honor killing as "there is not the faintest vestige of honor in killing a woman in this way." She called on Pakistan's government to stop the slayings.

"The fact that she was killed on her way to court, shows a serious failure by the state to provide security for someone who — given how common such killings are in Pakistan — was obviously at risk," Pillay said in a statement Wednesday.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Thursday welcomed comments by senior Pakistani leaders condemning "this heinous crime" and hoped the perpetrators would quickly be brought to justice. She said it was at least the third so-called honor killing reported in Pakistan this week.

http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-slain...184702535.html

___

It has been a really bad week for women in the world.....
 

UK leaders condemn Sudanese woman's death sentence

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister David Cameron and former leader Tony Blair have urged Sudan's government to lift the death sentence imposed on a Christian woman who refused to renounce her faith.

Cameron said the treatment of 27-year-old Meriam Ibrahim "is barbaric and has no place in today's world." Blair described the case as a "brutal and sickening distortion of faith."

Cameron told Saturday's edition of The Times newspaper that the British government was pressing Sudan to annul the sentence.

Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but who was raised by her Christian mother, was convicted of apostasy for marrying a Christian and sentenced to hang.

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-leaders-con...112441182.html

2 more arrests made in India gang-rape
Attack on teen cousins later hung from tree sparks outrage

Authorities arrested five men -- three brothers and two police officers -- who are facing rape and murder charges, said R.K.S. Rathore, a senior police officer.

The girls were out in the orchard relieving themselves Tuesday night when the attackers grabbed them, authorities said.

Toilets are rare in the village, forcing women to wander away into fields in the dead of night.

The lack of indoor plumbing leaves women in rural areas vulnerable to frequent rapes and beatings.

Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/national/2-more-...#ixzz33IPAypyl

Malaysian Girl Allegedly Raped By 38 Men

KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 (Reuters) - Malaysian police have detained 13 men and are looking for other suspects following allegations that a 15-year-old girl was raped by 38 men in an abandoned hut, media said on Friday.

Astro Awani television and and The Star daily reported that the assault took place in the northern state of Kelantan on May 20 when the girl met a girlfriend and was lured to an empty hut reported to be a local drug haunt.

The men took turns to rape her for hours. Police were also investigating whether her 17-year-old friend was also raped.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5415397.html

---------------------------------------

This isnt about sexually frustrated nerds without game, gun control, or any other excuses we used to explain male sexual violence against women.

The is about power, privilege, and entitlement of men. It is about using a penis as a weapon of mass destruction against our sisters.

And what are we fixated on? Let's see, does RuPaul has the right credentials to use the T word. Should the LA Clippers be sold to quell the controvery of its racist owner. And, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West taking a honeymoon stroll in Prague

There is something serious scewed up here.

Imagine being rescued from modern slavery, only to be charged with a crime.
 

That's the apparent reality in Mauritania, the country with the world's highest incidence of modern slavery. Located in West Africa, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, an estimated 4% to 20% of people there remain enslaved. It was the last country in the world to abolish the practice -- in 1981. And it only criminalized owning humans in 2007.

Mbeirika Mint M'bareck, a 15-year-old girl, was rescued from slavery only to be subsequently charged with having sex outside of marriage, according to a letter activists drafted on her behalf. (It is unclear who fathered the child). That crime is potentially punishable by death by stoning, according to an expert I spoke with. The activists planned to send the letter to the country's ministry of justice on Monday.

"We are shocked and appalled that the prosecuting authorities would bring the charge of (adultery), as this young girl is evidently the victim of the heinous crime of slavery as well as statutory rape," according to the letter, which the activists provided.

The 15-year-old ex-slave was "heavily pregnant" during a court hearing, which apparently led to the charge of sex outside of marriage. Her alleged captor, meanwhile, was charged simply with "exploitation of a minor (without financial compensation)," as opposed to the charge of slavery, which carries a longer prison term.

The situation is frightening not just for the teenager -- who should be released from judicial control, should have the charges against her dropped and should have her case further investigated -- but for those women who remain in slavery in Mauritania. After all, as Sarah Mathewson, Anti-Slavery International's Africa coordinator, noted in an email to me from nearby Niger, news of this case is bound to deter others being held from trying to escape.

"The majority of women in slavery have children outside of marriage, partly because they are so often raped by their masters, or encouraged into sexual relationships from a young age but denied the right to marry formally," Mathewson wrote. "This charge against a young girl sends a clear message to other women in slavery: If you leave your slave-owner with your children and try to seek justice, not only will we not assist and protect you, we will also charge you for the 'crime' of extramarital sex."

Mauritanian government officials did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment on Monday morning. I will update this post if and when I do hear from them. I also have been unable to obtain court documents concerning Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's case, and will provide details if I do get the chance to view them.

Perhaps this case will help wake up the international community to the continued existence of slavery in the modern world. Mauritania has shown some encouraging signs of progress in recent years. Anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, after being imprisoned for burning passages of Koranic texts that he said condone slavery, was released from prison and ran unsuccessfully for president this year. He's won international human rights awards and was featured in a recent New Yorker profile. The government also has created an agency specifically dedicated to trying to end the vestiges of slavery.

"The fact that a girl rescued from a situation of slavery should face this charge is particularly deplorable, given the Mauritanian government's recent commitments ... to strengthen the legal and policy framework against the vestiges of slavery and to increase support for victims," says a letter to the Mauritanian minister of justice on Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's behalf, signed by international organizations such as Walk Free, Anti-Slavery International and Free the Slaves, as well as Mauritanian groups.

Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's case is a sad reminder that progress to date is far from enough. Her case also is a chance for Mauritania to show the world that it's listening. By releasing her from judicial custody and dropping any charges against her, the justice ministry could send an important message: That it's finally getting serious about providing justice and eradicating slavery.

[Update, posted on October 23 at 10 a.m. ET]

Charges against Mbeirika Mint M'bareck have been dropped and the young woman is now living free from judicial custody, according to her attorney. It's unclear exactly why the charges were abandoned. The attorney, El Id Mohameden M'bareck, said the charges likely were dropped before anti-slavery activists on Monday sent a letter to authorities urging the 15-year-old liberated slave not be prosecuted for having sex outside marriage. The attorney welcomed the news, but said it remains important that the girl's former master be charged with the crime of slavery, instead of a lesser offense, as he says is currently the case.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/opinio...rebar_facebook

Western girls holiday in Kenya to undergo Female Genital Mutilation in secret
 

Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:37am GMT

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Somali families living in Britain and the United States are bringing their daughters to Kenya to secretly undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) as their home countries crack down on the internationally condemned practice.

Families pay up to $300 for a girl's genitals to be cut, said circumcisers and an anti-FGM campaigner in Nairobi's Eastleigh district, nicknamed Little Mogadishu as it is home to refugees from neighbouring war-torn Somalia and ethnic Somali Kenyans.

"Somalis come from America and Europe," said one elderly circumciser, wearing a purple and white tie-dye headscarf.

"They always come to me because they are scared to do it there ... During the holidays, they come and I cut them."

The circumciser, who learned the trade as a teenager in northern Kenya, declined to give her name as Kenya has stepped up prosecutions for FGM.

>>>>> The ritual, which involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia, can cause haemorrhage, shock, childbirth complications, fistula and death.

Under Kenya's 2011 law, those practising FGM face a minimum of three years in jail or a fine, and life imprisonment if the girl dies. Some 50 cases are in court, with at least two people facing murder charges.

Christmas is the cutting season in Kenya as schools close for six weeks. The government's FGM prosecution unit took out newspaper adverts in November warning that it was monitoring communities that practise FGM.

>>>> Around 27 percent of Kenyan women and girls have been cut.

>>>> In Somalia the practice is almost universal.

>>>> Cutters in Kenya are changing their methods in an attempt to evade the law, switching from infibulation -- in which all external genitalia are removed and the vaginal opening stitched closed -- to sunna, where only the clitoris is cut or removed.

"I just cut a little," said the circumciser, gesticulating with hennaed fingernails. "Sunna is good. She still enjoys sex. If you cut it all, she suffers."

FGM is deeply entrenched among Somalis, most of whom believe it is a religious obligation for Muslims. Campaigners say there is nothing in the Koran that advocates FGM.

Circumcisers learn to perform FGM while training with elder women to become traditional birth attendants. Around half of women in Kenya deliver at home and rely on lay midwives.

'THE MODERN WAY'

An anti-FGM campaigner in Eastleigh said she met a Somali-American from Minnesota in December who came to Nairobi for two weeks to have her daughters, aged 12 and 13, cut.

"The mother feels like she is doing the right thing," the campaigner said. "She says they are not going to undergo pain because they are doing it the modern way."

The United States banned FGM in 1996 and has since made it illegal to take a girl abroad to be cut.

British Somalis are often wealthier and call circumcisers to perform FGM in their rented homes in more upmarket parts of Nairobi like Hurlingham, the campaigner said.

An estimated 65,000 girls in Britain are at risk of FGM which was outlawed in 1985. Since 2003 it has also been illegal to take a girl abroad for FGM.

Border Force officers have stepped up education and surveillance of airline passengers flying to and from FGM-practising countries, such as Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Most of the Somalis who come to Kenya to perform FGM lived in Nairobi before, often as refugees, the circumciser said.

In December, she cut a 7-year-old British girl whose elder sisters she had cut in Nairobi several years earlier when the family was living there. Others get her number from former clients in the Somali diaspora.

Leyla Hussein, co-founder of British anti-FGM group Daughters of Eve, said campaigners in Kenya had told her that the diaspora communities were helping keep cutters in business.

"I know loads of women who have been cut in Kenya," added Hussein, a psychotherapist who helps women with FGM.

Hussein, who was born in Somalia, said campaigners in Kenya had helped get cutters closed down only to see them reappear in "pop-up houses" during the school holidays when families from the diaspora arrive and pay double the money.

"They told me that when the diasporas come they will usually have a group of girls together so it's a lot of money and the cutters are not going to miss out."

The head of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, visited Kenya in October to launch a global campaign to end FGM in one generation.

Worldwide more than 130 million girls and women have undergone FGM in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to U.N. data.

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNew...nnel=0&sp=true