Violence Against Women - What we in the US take for granted

[silkepus]

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

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by silkepus

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

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

[Kobi]

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

___

[LeftWriteFemme]

[Kobi]

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

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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.

[Kobi]

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

[*Anya*]

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