Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Guest blog – a personal view of the plight of women in Afghanistan

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 11:30 AM PDT

Mike Mosack
Photojournalist 

Imagine that one morning, you wake up and find that the status, freedoms and privileges you once had are now gone.

You are not even a person per se, more a piece of property with similar rights to a dog. Welcome to the world of women in many parts of Afghanistan today.

Not unlike those in many countries of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, women here face unbelievable hardships and treatment that would constitute crimes in the western world.

Women here have to comply, though, because if they don't, the result is often a severe beating or even death at the hands of the authorities or her own family. Many women choose what they believe is their only option – as suicide is something they can control.

The woman in the picture, wearing a traditional garment called a Chaderi-Buqra (usually pronounced "Burka"), sits in the middle of a road, her hand outstretched as she hopes that passers by will stop and give her some money.

This woman and many like her, fill the streets in cities throughout Afghanistan. Without a man to "protect" her (the war with the Soviets produced many widows), she has to fend for herself as best she can. Women generally are not allowed to work.

Culture dictates that her dead husband's brother or other blood male relative take responsibility for her, which usually results in marriage.  For women who have no one left to turn to, begging is their only option.

From a very early age, girls here are denied the rights, privileges and common courtesies bestowed on boys and men. Many, if not most women,  have no idea when their birthday is or how old they really are. No one seems to care.

There is a strong belief  that it is wrong for women to get an education. Family members often say almost proudly that their daughter is good because she is uneducated or can not read and write.

This is a Taliban rule, not really based in religion, but rather in maintaining control. Conversely, Islam promotes education for men and women alike and in fact, gave women the vote over 1,400 years ago.

There are secret meetings throughout Afghanistan's major cities where some women read, write and study literature.  Some will routinely lie to their families in their attempts to seek educational opportunities, wherever they can find them. To even possess books or talk about relationships is dangerous for a woman.

The perception is that  if she talks about such things, she must be doing them. She can legally be beaten or even killed so that her family's honor can be restored.

Given the current state of play, there is little chance that any woman will be taken seriously in a professional setting in Afghanistan. Men are not supposed to look at a woman, who is not their wife.

There are Taliban rules still enforced, especially in rural areas that state that men should ensure they speak loudly because a woman's voice should never be heard.

Quite what will happen when the US pulls out remains to be seen, but women’s rights  are unlikely to be at the top of the agenda.

Dove suggests women give ads a “makeover”

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 09:30 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor 

In an effort to combat negative body image, skincare company Dove is running an ad campaign with a difference.

It has created a Facebook application that allows women to replace adverts exhorting them to lose weight or increase their breast size with "messages that help women feel beautiful instead".

The ads typically show images of overweight women trying to squeeze into a pair of jeans, with copy lines claiming to help them lose 10lbs in a week.

They suggest that, in their place, women write positive and funny statements such as "The perfect bum is the one you're sitting on" and "Think of your cups as half full".

Ad agency Ogilvy & Mather UK is responsible for creating the Facebook campaign which is currently running in Australia.

It has already received positive reviews and is set to be rolled out across other global markets.

Abortion debate continues in Ireland

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:30 AM PDT

Auveen Woods
WVoN co-editor

Legislation to provide for limited access to abortion in Ireland was defeated in Parliament on April 19th by 109 votes to 20.

Socialist Party TD (member of parliament) Clare Daly introduced the Bill, entitled Medical Treatment (Termination of Pregnancy in Case of Risk to Life of Pregnant Woman) Bill 2012.

The Bill would have legislated on the “X-Case“, a 20-year-old Irish Supreme Court ruling that women should be allowed an abortion where the mother’s life is in danger.

As previously reported by WVoN, the failure of successive Irish governments to legislate on the findings of the Court and allow for abortion where the life of a mother is under physical or mental threat eventually led the European Court of Human Rights to rule against Ireland in the A,B,C case (2010).

Introducing the Bill the day before the Dáil (Irish Parliament) vote, Ms Daly said that the debate was not about whether to allow abortion in Ireland or not.

"Irish abortion exists,'' she said. "It just does not take place in Ireland. And that is simply not acceptable in 2012.''

It is estimated that 4,000 Irish women travel abroad for abortions annually.

Emotions were running high on the night of the Parliamentary debate as four women who had gone public with their stories addressed the Parliament, describing their experiences of aborting much wanted pregnancies.

All the women were forced to travel abroad for abortions after developing pregnancies with fatal foetal abnormalities.

Abortion is legal in Ireland where there is a real and substantive risk to the life of the mother, but due to the absence of any legislation or guidelines none are ever performed and consultants are often hesitant to discuss termination at all.

In the case of a fatal foetal abnormality if there is no risk to the life of the mother, as in the case of the four women, people must still travel abroad for an abortion.

There was controversy during the debate as one Senator accused the four women of having a “wider agenda”, while TD Michelle Mulherin argued against the Bill because she believed it was being used as a form of birth control by some Irish women travelling to England.

Ms Mulherin of the Fine Gael party who is from the same constituency as Prime Minister Enda Kenny also said that “Fornication is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country”.

The government had earlier signalled its intention to vote against the Bill despite its coalition partner, Labour, passing a motion supporting a more liberal abortion regime.

Minister for Health Dr James O’Reilly said the government opposed the Bill implementing the X case ruling to provide limited access to abortion because it is waiting for an expert group to report in June on implementing the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling.

In response to comments by Independent TD Mick Wallace that no action had been taken on the issue by six successive governments Dr Reilly told the Dáil "this will not be the seventh government”.

There is hope that the government’s expert group may advise going beyond the “threat to the life of the mother” as the the Bill proposed by Ms Daly dictated.

If the Bill introduced by Ms Daly had gone through it would not have addressed the plight of the four women whose babies had fetal abnormalities and may have made it more difficult for more liberal abortion legislation to be introduced in the future.

The abortion debate continues in Ireland.

Feminists counter nationwide pro-life demos in UK

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Hannah Boast
WVoN co-editor 

Feminists were out in force on Saturday in the UK to protest against nationwide ‘kerbside vigils’ being held by pro-life group Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).

The counter-protests were spontaneously organised via Facebook in cities including Edinburgh, Bath, Bristol, Brighton, Newcastle, Cardiff, Lincoln, Liverpool and Sheffield.

The ability of feminists in different cities to mass together so quickly using social media is an encouraging sign for those of us who have been dismayed by the recent increase in pro-life activity on the ground and in government.

The vigils were held in over 50 towns and cities in the UK to mark the 44th anniversary of the introduction of the 1967 Abortion Act, which legalised abortion in the UK (but not Northern Ireland).

SPUC claims that it wanted to give ‘silent witness’ to ‘well over seven-and-a-half million unborn children…killed through registered abortion in Britain’, and also to ‘the hurt caused to women by abortion.’

The UK pro-life movement has gained rapidly in confidence in the last year and has increasingly modelled its tactics on those of the US Christian right, adopting the same grisly photographs, graphic  vocabulary and intimidating forms of protest, often holding vigils outside abortion clinics.

This March, militant pro-lifers from the campaign group 40 Days for Life set up a vigil outside the offices of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) in London.

This vigil was also actively opposed by a group of over 500 protesters who gathered outside the BPAS clinic on March 30 to support the right to abortion.

The Sheffield vigil on Saturday took place at what initially seemed a bizarre location – on a piece of wasteland next to a busy road outside Meadowhall shopping centre.

As the vigil went on, the benefits of the location for the pro-lifers became apparent to those of us on the counter-protest.

The road was slow-moving, packed with cars of shoppers heading to Meadowhall, who would drive past the pro-life signs and read their messages, with no chance to engage or object. Vigils in other parts of the country also took place next to busy roads.

Many drivers seemed relieved to see a counter-demonstration and beeped their horns, raised thumbs or mouthed ‘good work’ in support. Encouragingly, a lot of our supporters were families with children in the back seat.

The pro-choice counter-protest was attended by around 40 people, mostly younger women, but also a significant number of men.

When we arrived at 11am there were 12 pro-life protesters, who looked a little shocked to see us. Their numbers grew to over 20, nearly all men aged over 60. There was a scattering of women, and two children.

All the pro-life protesters we spoke to in Sheffield were polite and none carried the placards of foetuses that have become typical of the US pro-life movement. However, one pro-lifer attempted to show pro-choice protesters one of these images on his mobile phone.

Interestingly, SPUC claims to be secular, basing its argument on the UN 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, but the supporters we spoke to were strongly religious.

Some carried rosary beads, tried to bless us, or talk to us about God.

The rise of an increasingly vocal pro-life minority in the UK is concerning, especially when it threatens to lead to a reduction in the number of providers.

We should not have to protest to keep rights that were won by our grandmothers and mothers 44 years ago.

Still, Saturday’s impressive counter-protests across the country left many of the people I spoke to feeling invigorated and empowered.

The UK’s growing feminist movement could not be in a better place to win this fight.

Jury in Somalian sex-trafficking trial in Tennessee start deliberations

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 03:30 AM PDT

Aisha Farooq
WVoN co-editor

The trial of a  Somalian gang for alleged sex-trafficking has reached its final stage with a US federal jury set to begin deliberating this week.

The nine male defendants awaiting the ruling are mainly of Somali origin, with one Ethiopian and one US Laotian.

The men are the first group of around 30 people, tracked by the U.S. attorney’s office, who have been indicted for child sex-trafficking in areas around Tennessee.

One of the key witnesses to come forward in the trial is a 17-year-old Somalian girl, one of four female victims thought to have been sold for sex between the ages of 12 and 18.

The girl told the jury that she had been coerced into prostitution at the age of 12.

She said that the gang charged outside clients between $40 and $50 for sex, and that she had almost been sold as a sex slave for $2,000. She also said that she had been expected to offer sexual services to members of the gang for free.

However, defense attorneys have argued that the real age of the girl was unknown as her birth certificate was fake. They also claimed that the girl voluntarily offered sexual services to various gang members.

They accused her of being a ‘party girl’ who had run away from her conservative family before joining up with the gang.

According to defense attorney, John Olivia, this proved that  the case was not about sex-trafficking at all, but about young people rebelling from their culturally traditional backgrounds and experimenting with sex.

He said that the girl was as old as the men she was having sex with.

The US District Judge William Haynes reminded the attorneys that any victim under the age of 18 consenting to sexual intercourse was not a valid defense, let alone one claiming to be 12.

Assistant US attorney, Van Vincent added that even victims over 18 could be protected by federal law, as long as they could prove that they had been subject to “fraud, force or coercion” by the defendants.

Another key female witness in the trial also claimed she had been sold for sex in Minneapolis as a young girl and had continued working as a prostitute past the age of 18. She said she had noticed other underage girls being sold for sex by members of the gang.

Defense attorney, Luke Evans, contested the girl’s evidence by arguing that she was mentally ill. He claimed that the dates and events that she recalled as part of her evidence did not match and were therefore unreliable.

In their closing arguments last week, the defense argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the two female witnesses were part of the sex trafficking conspiracy at all.

Assaulted Pakistani woman fighting deportation from Canada

Posted: 30 Apr 2012 01:29 AM PDT

Aisha Farooq
WVoN co-editor 

A 20-year-old woman is fighting deportation to Pakistan this week after a man in Montreal sexually assaulted her last year.

The woman, named ‘Zara’ in order to protect her, fears she might be harmed if returned to her homeland.

The attacker in question, a wealthy businessman also of Pakistani descent, is thought to have a large family base in Pakistan. Zara admits that she has already received a number of threats from them.

Three Canadian victims’ groups became involved in Zara’s case, including the Movement Against Rape and Incest (MARI),  the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, and the Regroupement Québecois de centres d'aide et de lutte contre les agressions à caractères sexuels.

Rosalind Wong of MARI, said that if Zara was deported, the attacker could "easily find someone (in Pakistan) who would harm her and prevent her from ever coming back to Canada to pursue her charges against him."

In addition, Wong added that Zara had been seeking neurological treatment for the past six years. Her neurologist had advised her against travelling for at least six months after she suffered a concussion in February.

Despite this, Immigration Canada arrested her last week after she missed her final removal date on April 24. She was then taken to a detention center in Laval, Quebec.

An emergency hearing by the Federal Court of Canada on Saturday decided to postpone her deportation for the time being.

Zara arrived in Canada in 2000, when her parents filed for refugee status. However, their status became void after the Refugee Protection Division decided that they “were not persons otherwise in need of international protection.”

The families appeal to overturn the decision was rejected in 2006 by the Federal Court.

It is hoped that Zara will be able stay long enough to file a case against her attacker, who would otherwise not be prosecuted.