Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Nicola Brookes wins legal challenge against Facebook

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 09:30 AM PDT

Jane Osmond
WVoN co-editor

On 21 May 2012 I wrote about how Nicola Brookes, a woman who posted a supportive comment on X-Factor Frankie Cocozza’s contestant page, received a barrage of online abuse from Facebook trolls.

The trolls, as well as publishing her address online on Mother's Day this year, also set up a fake Facebook page in her name, which portrayed her as a paedophile and contained such comments as “I am a paedophile and I like underage girls and me and Frankie f**k them together”.

Incensed and upset by the failure of both the police and Facebook to take action over this, Nicola took her case to the High Court, and on 30 May was successful in obtaining a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO), which compels Facebook to hand over the details of those who have abused her online.

Although Facebook, as a US company does not have to comply, it has agreed to provide the details.

Speaking to Nicola the day after the order was granted, I asked her about her experience of this abuse, which began in November 2011 and continues to this day.

“I made a comment on Frankie Cocozza's official ITV page and within hours my Facebook page was targeted and two days later a fake profile using my picture and name was set up.

“I used every option available to me, through the Facebook reporting system and reporting to the police, and both repeatedly failed me. Asking a law firm to step in and help was the only way I had left to get them to stop.

“Even now the trolls' arrogance and confidence that they will not be found, exposed and held accountable is openly bragged about while still stalking me over the internet, taunting me, my legal team, my publicist, and anybody who comments or shows me support. I am still not able to use and speak on the internet freely.”

To its credit, not only did law firm Bains Cohen give Nicola legal advice, it offered to take her case pro bono.

Rupinder Bains, partner at Bains Cohen, who accompanied Nicola to the High Court on 30 May, commented: “Nicola's case was so severe that we felt we had to help her. In comparison with famous people, for example an MP or a footballer, where online platforms tend to give up the information quite quickly, the resources don't seem to be there for the general public and this is a disparity that we need to change.”

Although Nicola is pleased that the legal challenge has been successful, and is hopeful that the end result will be the prosecution of the people who have targeted her, the case has taken a heavy toll on her physical and emotional health.

Nicola suffers from Crohn’s disease and colitis, and, after surviving a serious operation in 2011, is now experiencing a flare up of both conditions due to stress.  Some of the comments referenced both her health and her appearance, and have hurt her deeply.

She is also upset by comments that she is trying to make money out of her ordeal: “I cannot pay the legal fees for my case because I cannot work due to my health issues.

“This does not mean that I am trying to make money out of what has happened to me: I just want this kind of online abuse to stop so everybody can use social networking sites safely and free from abuse.”

Meanwhile, over the last six months since her nightmare began, Nicola has become much more aware of the extent of online abuse. She has been contacted by other people with heart breaking stories who have had the same experience and, in some instances, been targeted by the same trolls.

Despite her health issues, Nicola is determined to see the case through. This is good news for the general public, particularly those with memorial pages for loved ones, who are routinely targeted.

Even as I write, Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington is suffering the same experience and has shut down her social networks while competing, and a member of the group CRINJ, Meredith Keeton, is trying to combat her own online abuse from an activist group called Rape is No Joke, by setting up her own page in rebuttal.

Rupinder comments: “Bullying and harassment is a crime and we don't accept it in the workplace – we have also got to say that is not acceptable online – just because there is a veil of anonymity online it doesn't mean it is any more acceptable. In the States there have been a number of suicides over these kind of issues and that is going to start happening here: we have to stop it before it gets to that stage”.

She also pointed out that many people, after trying the reporting mechanism on Facebook or going to the police and finding that little action is taken, do not realise what their legal options are. She advises reporting online abuse to the police as harassment of this type is a criminal offence.

‘This kind of online abuse is completely unacceptable and we need to put the groundwork in now – otherwise it will be very hard to rein in as too much damage will have been done. For me, this ruling is the start of this groundwork in that those who have hounded Nicola are about to be identified,” says Rupinder.

And, for those who are quickly deleting accounts, they should be aware that IP addresses can be tracked retrospectively even if the account has been deactivated. The days of the anonymous online abuser may be numbered at last.

You can show Nicola support on her Facebook page Trolls and Me.

Please watch this space for an outline of the legal position from Bains Cohen in the coming weeks.

NB: To clarify the use of the word 'troll': this has entered into the public lexicon and is generally understood to be an anonymous poster who either derails an online discussion by being provocative or who harasses and bullies people online.

Less sex please, we’re British

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Jackie Gregory
WVoN co-editor

Sex and whether we are having too much of it, is what the Bishop of London wants us to ponder as we wave our union jacks and dance to the tune of royalty.

The Right Reverend Richard Chartres claims promiscuity and divorce has reached epidemic proportions and we should use the Diamond Jubilee as a time to mend our wicked ways.

He says Britain has changed enormously throughout the Queen’s reign, much of it for the better, but that an obsession with SEX – the Church of England always seems to spit that word out – has left us with a broken society, reports the Press Association.

“Literally millions of children grow up without knowing a stable, loving, secure family life – and that is not to count the hundreds of thousands more who don’t even make it out of the womb each year,” he says.

“Promiscuity, separation and divorce have reached epidemic proportions in our society. Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be surprised that depression and the prescription of anti-depressants has reached a similarly epidemic level.”

Reflecting on the word ‘jubilee’, the Bishop says it means the ‘long view’ and that we should take a long view of our society and consider what we shall bequeath to future generations. His discourse does focus greatly on dealing with debt, but it is his remarks about sex that have hit the headlines.

The implication of his argument is that we should all go back to playing happy families again – perhaps  just like that happiest of families – the royal household.

While the Bishop may be unhappy about the 21st society, he should take off any rose-tinted glasses about how life was for women 60 years ago.

These were the days when pregnant women were marched down the aisle to respectability – and more often to years of unhappy marriage. No depression here then? Just thousands of females feeling compelled to lie back and think of England, while the church suppressed their screams of despair under the bondage of duty and servitude.

The days when women did not have so much control over their own contraception needs, and had to put their lives in the hands of backstreet abortionists to avoid the ‘shame’ of unmarried motherhood. A time when society snatched children from their unmarried mothers and put them out for adoption. A time when women had to give up their jobs and their identity once they married and became known as Mrs John Smith.

He praises the Queen for her "quiet dignity" but fails to point the finger at the Royal family, which has led the way in promiscuity, divorce, depression, extravagance and materialism in the past six decades. But then again he is a long time friend of the right royal adulterer and profligate Prince Charles.

Chartres, who is in the running to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, is considered to be in the anglo-catholic conservative wing of the Church of England, and The Bible Society is issuing his Jubilee pamphlet to every MP.

Some will rejoice that he quotes Margaret Thatcher in it. “No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a full repairing lease… we are its guardians and trustees for generations to come,” says the woman who smashed the mining unions and whole communities with it.

As The Independent points out: "The bishop’s remarks will chime with the conservative element of the church at a time of evangelical protests against abortion clinics."

The paper also notes divorce and abortion rates in Britain have been declining in recent years.  The number of married couples separating has been in decline for the past seven years, with the exception of last year which saw a 4.9% rise in divorce.

The Bishop’s pamphlet can be read in full here. In it he concludes: “There is no return to Churchill's Britain or to the seemingly attractive but ultimately oppressive social experiments of the 1960s. We need a fresh narrative that appreciates the real virtues communicated by our history but which transcends our recent past."

Legs crossed this fresh narrative doesn’t wipe out the hard fought gains for women’s rights since the Queen took to the throne.

Vatican newspaper launches women’s supplement

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Jackie Gregory
WVoN co-editor

The official newspaper of The Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano, is launching a women’s supplement for the first time in its 150 year history. Its aim is "to give voice to the value that women bring to the church" reports The Guardian.

According to editor Giovanni Maria Vian, it will promote a keener understanding of the “under-appreciated treasure” of women in the church.

L'Osservatore Romano is published every day. Once a month four colour pages will be devoted to women’s interest, with the emphasis, it seems, on feminine rather than feminist issues.

The women’s supplement was announced with a fanfare. A YouTube video by Rome Reports  begins by saying: "The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano is honouring women by recognising feminine genius every month" and concludes that it will give "a new feminine vision for the Vatican City State".

The Express Tribune quotes Lucetta Scaraffia, a historian and writer for the paper who thought up the idea, saying: "This supplement provides information on the female condition, without ignoring hot topics like procreation, access to culture and women's rights."

However she says, in an interview with Zenit news agency and reported by World Crunch, that women had been deceived by a certain type of feminism.

"A majority of women," says Scaraffia, "believed those who promised happiness and freedom through sexual freedom, contraception and abortion. As if happiness, for women, was to behave like men."

Scaraffia, who was the first female journalist on the paper when she joined in 2008, describes herself as a feminist and has criticised the clergy for being “traditionally misogynistic”.

Pope Benedict XVI supports the project, Vian told the Express Tribune, recalling the pontiff's 2009 statement that the "Church and society in general urgently need" female input.

In April 2012 the Pope, as reported by Reuters, spoke out against women’s ordination saying the ban on women priests was part of the church’s divine constitution.

Campaign against domestic violence as Euro 2012 kicks off

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Jackie Gregory
WVoN co-editor

Police have launched a campaign to reduce domestic violence as the Euro 2012 football campaign gets underway this week.

The initiative entitled ‘What time is kick off in your house?’ has been adopted by police forces across the country.

Last year in Lancashire, 30,000 women reported domestic abuse. In a campaign to coincide with Euro 2012, 21-year-old Belinda Fay tells Granada news how she was badly burnt by a former partner.

“He threatened to set me on fire and he just went upstairs right calm, came down with lighter fluid, poured it on my belly and ignited it…

“I could never really get away…and when I did do that it just got worse because he kept coming back for me and I couldn’t escape it and I thought that’s what a relationship was about …so I thought it were normal.”

In Derbyshire, posters with helpline numbers are being distributed to pubs throughout the area. They are also being translated into Polish for the Polish community.

Commenting on the campaign, Detective Inspector Paul Carrington told the Derbyshire Times: "This campaign aims to raise awareness of domestic violence as it still remains under reported.

“Statistics show that during sporting tournaments the amount of domestic violence incidents increase. During the matches in which England played at the World Cup in 2010, incidents reported in Derbyshire increased by 25% compared to the same dates in 2009."

Swindon Community Safety Partnership (CSP) is also running a similar campaign with a poster urging people to ‘blow the whistle’ on violent abusers.

The manager of Swindon CSP, Richard Palusinski, said: "In the past we have seen a sharp increase nationally in domestic violence incidents during football tournaments.

“Domestic violence is unacceptable and indefensible, and we really want to get that message across to anyone who still believes that it can ever be justified to assault their partner. People must take responsibility for their actions."

The Euro 2012 championships begin on Friday 8 June.

The National Domestic Violence Helpline can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on 0808 2000 247. Contact police on 101 – always dial 999 in an emergency.

Coventry launches two initiatives for vulnerable females

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 03:30 AM PDT

Jane Osmond
WVoN co-editor

On Tuesday 29 May I attended the launch of two initiatives at St Peter's Centre, a community centre in the heart of Coventry’s red light district in northern England.

The first, the Coventry Sex Workers Community Partnership, aims to raise awareness among the local community of the issues surrounding sex work and the support available to those involved in the sex trade.

The initiative brings together agencies committed to tackling the problems surrounding sex work, particularly on-street prostitution. These include Kairos WWT (Women Working Together), the SWISH project from the Terrence Higgins Trust, the West Midlands Police and Coventry City Council.

Lucia Gattuso, Kairos WWT's project manager commented:

“Finding routes out of prostitution can be a challenging and lengthy process and the women involved in on-street sex work face many barriers that are very difficult to overcome without adequate help and support.

“In addition one of the biggest challenges for communities where on-street prostitution is an issue is finding a way to manage the concerns that residents raise around neighbourhood nuisances without further stigmatising the women (and men) who are bound to the streets.

“In Coventry, we are committed to listening to the concerns of the community as well as the needs of the individuals involved in sex work and working with them to find lasting solutions.”

The second project, Streetwise, run by The Children's Society in Coventry, aims to raise awareness of the sexual exploitation of young people. It builds on a previous project that found such exploitation – experienced by girls more than boys – affected children who are missing from home or in care.

'Exploitation' is defined as anything which:

  • Involves exploitative situations, contexts and relationships where young people (or a third person or persons) receive 'something' (e.g. food, accommodation, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, affection, gifts, money) for performing, and/or having others performing on them, sexual activities.
  • Involves an exploiter who has power over a child by virtue of their age, gender, intellect, physical strength and/or economic or other resources.

The Streetwise project aims to raise awareness through:

  • Sessions with young people ‘at risk’ in pupil referral units, children's homes and schools.
  • One-to-one intensive support for young people.
  • Brief awareness sessions with agencies.
  • Working with the hotel trade, locally and nationally.

Jenny Mahimbo of The Children's Society commented:

“Projects like Streetwise offer the consistent support young people need to resist the pernicious pull of child sexual exploiters. More needs to be done to raise awareness of young people, carers and professionals, and to support young people through the often very arduous process of the prosecution of perpetrators.”

For more information, you can access the following websites:

Coventry Sex Workers Community Partnership

The Children's Society

Hopes that China will at last bring in domestic violence law

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Laura Bridgestock
WVoN co-editor

There are hopes that China will finally bring in legislation against domestic violence, after the country’s government agreed to look into drafting a new law, possibly by the end of 2012.

The issue of domestic violence is huge in China. According to a 2011 survey conducted by the All-China Women's Federation, almost one in four women said they had experienced domestic abuse.

In an online survey, conducted in May 2012 by Maple Women's Psychological Counselling Centre, 55% of respondents said they had been victims of domestic violence. Types of abuse reported included sexual and verbal abuse, scalding, knife attacks, beating and restraints on freedom.

The online survey shows that victims of domestic violence include both women and men, but that women in particular are deterred from speaking out, as they feel they are unlikely to receive help – and because of the cultural taboo surrounding the subject.

Li Ying, a lawyer working in the country, says many victims of domestic violence feel it is something to be ashamed of, and that should be kept private.

Reporter Huey Fern Tay adds that, while there are women's shelters in existence, in practice many have not been used. Even if they are open, Ying says, they're often alongside homeless shelters, and the few women who do seek help there feel 'abandoned'.

The extent of the problem is further illustrated by an incident reported recently by an expat blogger living in China:

A few days ago I was walking down to Louhu subway station, and there was a Chinese guy (about my size – and I'm not small) administering a good slap to his girlfriend for some minor misdemeanour. Hundreds of people walked past as this poor girl wept and her boyfriend carried on his beating. Not one stopped, in fact a police officer nearby turned his back deliberately so he didn't have to do anything.

However, it seems there is at last hope that both cultural and legal frameworks will start to change for the better.

This is largely thanks to Kim Lee, the American woman who last year brought the issue into the open by posting photographs on the internet, showing the results of the latest attack she had suffered at the hands of her Chinese husband, Li Yang.

Li Yang is well known in China, as the founder of the 'Crazy English' approach to learning English.

The photos, and Lee's story, soon went viral and it seems Lee's determination may pay off not only for herself, but for thousands of others.

In a recent interview, she said, "I just made up my mind at that minute that was the last time. This is never going to happen again."

Proposed measures for the mooted legislation include prison sentences and 're-education' courses. Women's rights groups have also called for penalties to be set for judges and prosecutors who fail to pursue domestic violence cases.