Friday, December 16, 2011

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

British women to race in World Sailing Championship final

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Summary of story from The Guardian, December 15, 2011 The British women’s match racing team will compete in the World Sailing Championship final against America after triumphing in their semi-final against France. The final will take place in Fremantle, in Perth, Australia and the team of Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate McGregor is now [...]

Women in Nigeria battle against climate change

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Summary of story from AllAfrica, December 15, 2011 Women in Makoko, a slum close to Nigeria’s Lagos Lagoon, are struggling to deal with the effects of climate change on their families and livelihoods. Lagos is listed by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, as one of the coastal Africa cities most likely to suffer [...]

Elderly women murdered for ‘witchcraft’ in Mozambique

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Summary of story from AllAfrica, December 14, 2011 Between January and November this year,16 elderly women were murdered in Mozambique after being accused of witchcraft. The killings took place in the district of Marromeu, in the central Mozambican region of Sofala. The issue of murders for practicing witchcraft was raised during a protest against violence [...]

Afghan rape victim freed from jail

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Summary of story from CNN, December 15, 2011 A woman in Afghanistan who had been imprisoned for “adultery” after she was raped two years ago, has been freed after the country’s president pardoned her (see WVoN coverage). The woman, Gulnaz, was sentenced to prison for 12 years after a married male relative raped her. She [...]

A quarter of UK young women had underage sex

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Summary of story from BBC News, December 15, 2011 More than 25 per cent of British women now aged 16-24 first had sex under the age of 16 according to a new survey. This is compared to only 4 per cent of women aged 55-69. The Health Survey for England asked 8,420 adults aged 16-69 [...]

Clothing line accused of glamorising sexual violence

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Summary of story from The Daily Mail, December 15, 2011 A new H&M clothing line glamourises sexual violence according to Montreal journalist Natalie Karneef. “Sexual violence is an epidemic. Putting a chic, consumerist finish on it glosses over the lives it destroys and the spirits it breaks,” Karneef said in an open letter to H&M [...]

Panel hears from victims of sexual violence in Cambodia

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Summary of story from awid, December 14, 2011 A panel made up of representatives from across the globe  has examined women’s experiences of sexual violence in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. The regime was in power from January 1975 to April 1979 and the panel heard testimonies from survivors who were victims during that [...]

Men still dominate pop charts

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Summary of story from Miller-McCune, December 14, 2011 Claims made in the late 1990s that women were nearing equality in the pop charts have failed to materialise according to new research. In 1997, Rolling Stone magazine announced that “women are ruling the roost” and celebrated the rise of the female pop star. But the dominance [...]

Lebanon drafts patriarchal citizenship law

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Lindsay Carroll WVoN co-editor Lebanon is about to pass a law to give nationality to the descendants of Lebanese immigrants, with one caveat: the descendants must be male. The Lebanese cabinet endorsed a draft law on December 12 to help the children and grandchildren of Lebanese immigrants become naturalised. But they modified the law to [...]

Hamleys toy shop attacked over sexist signs

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Summary of story from The International Business Times, December 13, 2011 World famous London toy shop Hamleys has refuted claims from feminist groups that they forced the store to change “sexist toy signs”. The shop originally received criticism from feminist blogger, Laura Nelson over the stereotypical blue and pink lettering signalling the “boys and girls” [...]

Row over Philippine contraception bill

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Summary of story from BBC News, December 15, 2011 A controversial bill to introduce free contraception and family planning to the people of the Philippines has sparked widespread debate in the country (see WVoN coverage). The Philippines has the highest birth rate in South East Asia. There are now more than 95 million Filipinos compared [...]

Female leaders advise on South Sudan’s future

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Lucy Miller WVoN co-editor  Female leaders from South Sudan have this week been putting forward recommendations on development, security and government priorities for the future of the world's newest country. They were developed at the Gender Symposium in Washington DC, ahead of the first international meeting on the future of South Sudan. The symposium was co-hosted [...]

Almost 20% of US women have experienced sexual assault, study finds

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Summary of story from The New York Times, December 14, 2011 A study released by the US government yesterday shows that nearly one in five women in the US has been a victim of rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey consisted of interviews [...]

Protests in Paris over cost-cutting breast implant scandal

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Summary of story from The Guardian, December 14, 2011 Yesterday saw the first street demonstrations by victims of France's most shocking cosmetic surgery scandal in years. Thousands of women have been given cheap breast implants, made not from medical-grade but industrial silicone, in a cost-saving measure taken by surgery company Poly Implant Prosthetics (PIP). The [...]

New testimony in case accusing Saudi prince of rape

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Summary of story from CNN, December 14, 2011 New evidence has been heard by a Spanish court from a 23-year-old woman who claims she was raped by a Saudi Arabian prince. The woman, who is of dual Spanish and German nationality, alleges that Prince Alwaleed Bin Talai, one of the world’s richest men, raped her on [...]

Inquest held into patient’s death from “worst case” of anorexia seen by doctors

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Summary of story from The Mirror, December 15, 2011 A British woman died as a result of the “worst case” of anorexia her doctors had ever seen, an inquest heard yesterday. Kate Chilvers had battled the disease for sixteen years and weighed just four and a half stone when she died aged 31. Ms Chilvers [...]

Sakharov freedom of thought awards presented

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Summary of story from Europarl, December 14, 2011 “By awarding the Sakharov Prize to the five Arab Spring activists, the European Parliament recognises the efforts of all those who struggle for dignity, basic freedoms and political change in the Arab world,” said Jerzy Buzek, president of the parliament. He was speaking at the Sakharov Prize for [...]