Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Memorial for Asian spy unveiled

Posted: 13 Nov 2012 08:13 AM PST

A bronze bust of Princess Noor Inayat Khan has been unveiled by Princess Anne in London.

Noor is the first Asian women in the UK to receive a dedicated memorial for her intelligence-gathering services during the Second World War.

Noor was drafted into the British Secret Service to be in the resistance against the Nazis in France.

She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) before being recruited into Britain’s Special Operations Exectutive (SOE) because of her fluency in both French and English.

Following meticulous training, she was deployed to Paris at the end of 1942, the first female radio operator to be sent, and she was able to band together a ‘spy ring’ fighting the Nazi regime.

She was part of a highly dangerous and risky campaign, and the job’s life expectancy was only six weeks.

It was thought that Noor, who went by the code name of Madeleine, was in the end betrayed.

Captured by the Gestapo, she was first sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany where she was kept shackled and in solitary confinement.

Here, she was tortured for the next 10 months – and it is perhaps a miracle that during this period she refused to reveal any British or Allied secrets.

She was finally taken to Dachau concentration camp and shot and killed there on 13 September 1944, at the age of 30. Her last word was “Liberté”.

Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her gallantry. France honoured her with the Croix de Guerre.

Noor’s cousin, Mahmood Khan van Goens Youskine, admitted: "We did not find out until after the war about her SOE work and what ultimately happened to her.”

“When we did, we were naturally saddened but her spirit has lived on. Everyone – British, Indian and beyond – can take pride in what she did," he said.

Shrabani Basu, author of Noor’s biography, Spy Princess, was responsible for the campaign which called for a dedicated memorial.

Regarding her as a true heroine and symbol of courage, Basu founded the Noor Memorial Trust and spent the last two years seeking out and gaining the support of high ranking individuals, including David Cameron.

She eventually managed to raise £70,000 for the bronze bust, by sculptor Karen Newman, which has been placed in the London borough of Bloomsbury where Noor lived as child.

“As I started researching her life, I realised she was a Sufi who believed in non-violence and religious harmony and had yet volunteered to be in the frontline,” Basu said.

Princess Noor is notably the great-great-great-granddaughter of the South Indian ruler Tipu Sultan, who fought against the British in the 1800s and died in battle.

“Though she believed firmly in Indian independence, she was focused and knew that it was important to fight the war against fascism,” Basu added.

"I think it is really important for future generations to know about Noor. She crossed so many boundaries, between Britain and India, between non-violence and her belief that the Nazis had to be defeated.

“It would be nice to think that children will know about this woman and her courage."

Relateable – teens’ verdict on Some Girls

Posted: 13 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST

WVoN asked real teenage girls for their views on the new BBC3 comedy.

Some Girls follows the lives of four 16-year-old girls who play football together at school, and live on a fictitious council estate in South London.

The first of six episodes, screened on Tuesday, November 6, features Amber, who is trying to extricate herself from her possessive boyfriend while her friend Viva has to suffer the bullying football coach both at school and at home, as the coach is expecting a baby with Viva’s father.

Teenage pregnancy, teachers, tranquilisers, sex – nothing is off limits for this programme.  But how well does it reflect the lives and experiences of real teenagers?

"The situations and the language were relatable. Overall I thought it was a very good programme," said 15-year-old Anike Shantan from London.

Shantan particularly liked the coach, who came down on the girls as teachers do.

"Going to a girl's school everyone is really roped into having boyfriends and news and gossip about that stuff," she said.

Seventeen-year-old Viviyana Matanda, a sixth form student from Cardiff agrees.

"I quite liked it, I thought it was pretty funny," she said.

"Some of the stories like the teen mum, very relatable.  It's exaggerated, but you know people like this.

"I guess it represented the situation we are in, but in a more comical way," she said.

Ellie Manning, 17, from Cardiff, did not think the programme was realistic and thought it was rather over-acted, but found it funny nonetheless.

"I live near an estate, but I'm very naive to what goes on. They are all going through the same things as us. Our lives are all the same," said Shantan.

The programme is about teenagers, but is screened at 10 o clock, after the watershed, too late for a lot of younger teenagers to watch on a school night.  If you watch it on the IPlayer a button comes up asking you if you are 16 or over.

But the teenagers we spoke to thought the programme was clearly aimed at them. "It's definately for people our age, anyone older wouldn't really understand," said Matanda.

And it addresses issues faced by young women before they reach 16.

It is ironic that to produce a programme that reflects the true experience of teenagers it has to be shown at a time that places it out of reach of many of them.

Shantan believes there is a lack of programmes for young women of her age on TV.

"There are kid's programmes and there is the Disney channel, and then it goes straight to adults.  CBBC ends at 12," she said.

The 17-year-olds we spoke to were already watching adult programmes.

Some of the girls were concerned about the way girls their age are portrayed on TV.

"If you watch American shows they are much more mature than us.  In the UK, teenagers are portrayed as chavs or immature, it's usually fairly stereotypical, but that is what we find funny so you can't really complain," said Matanda.

Shantan said: "On TV it's like all girls are after boys, running around with skirts round our knickers running after boys.

"It would be nice to have TV shows that show us in a good light.  They all say the same thing."

You can watch Some Girls here.

Human rights law and reports ignored

Posted: 13 Nov 2012 02:27 AM PST

South Sudan and the DR Congo governments cover up sexual violence reports.

Guest blog from Women4Women International

A UN human rights investigator has been expelled from South Sudan, after producing allegedly false reports accusing the South Sudanese army of torturing, raping and murdering civilians.

The UN has said that the expulsion breached South Sudan's legal obligations to the United Nations, on which the world's youngest nation is highly dependant.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July last year after decades of civil war, yet conflict still continues throughout disputed border areas.

According to Amnesty International, during the 22-year war, 2 million civilians died, 2 million women were raped, and 4 million were displaced from their homes.

The expulsion of the UN officer has sparked unease throughout the UN and human rights groups, who claim that South Sudan allows abuses by security forces, composed of poorly trained guerrilla and militia fighters.

Last month Amnesty International published a report accusing South Sudan's security forces of committing 'shocking' and widespread acts of violence against civilians.

Government spokesman for South Sudan, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, said the officer had been “writing reports which have no truth in them”. He did not elaborate on this claim.

This event reveals a pattern in war-torn governments fighting to keep reports of human rights abuses from the public eye.

Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last week, fuelling theories that the Congolese government is trying to silence his pleas to end violence against women.

Eastern Congo has long been labelled one of the world's most dangerous places to be a woman, where sexual violence is systematically utilised as a weapon of war to terrorise women and destroy communities.

Dr Mukwege established the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, eastern Congo with incentives of treating female victims of rape and sexual violence.

He has treated more than 40,000 women since the hospital opened in 1999.

Sources claim that Dr Mukwege has made an enemy of Congolese president Joseph Kabila, potentially upsetting the president by exposing the extent of the sexual crimes committed against Congolese women and putting the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the forefront of this focus.

Last month Dr Mukwege attended the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence conference in New York City, where he strongly denounced mass rape in DR Congo.

The attempts by South Sudanese and Congolese governments to silence human rights activists indicate that the levels of corruption may be even more multifaceted than previously anticipated.

Women are not only brutally targeted by militia, but ignored by their own governments – governments so intent on keeping the sexual violence endemic under covers that it appears they will target anyone who dares speak out.

The evidence is undeniable: what we are witnessing is truly a war on women.

Women for Women International is a non-profit organisation that provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty, to stability and self-sufficiency.

We work with women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, and 6 other war-torn countries.

To find out what you can do to help, visit our website.

Calls to rape crisis lines increase

Posted: 13 Nov 2012 01:16 AM PST

Organisations across the UK reporting a huge increase in calls to helplines.

Rape crisis hotlines and child abuse charities across the country have seen a significant increase in calls to their helplines in the wake of the horrific allegations of abuse by Jimmy Savile.

Organisations across the UK have reported a huge increase in calls to helplines.

The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) saw an increase in one 10-day period of seven times the usual amount of calls.

Rape Crisis England and Wales centres say they have seen a 20 per cent increase in callers, with one centre getting as many callers in a day as they usually get in a week.

The callers are in some cases disclosing abuse from many years before, but in some cases are reporting abuse that is still ongoing .

The NSPCC, who have also seen a sharp increase in calls to their helpline said, “The case of Jimmy Savile has caught the attention of the entire country.

“And whilst we have seen a wave of calls relating to abuse by the late celebrity, as well as calls from other adults who were abused in childhood, we have also seen a very welcome surge of calls relating to children suffering abuse right now.

“This is especially encouraging as we may be able to help stop this abuse in its tracks and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre (CRASAC) have just published their statistics for October and have not only seen an increase of 42 per cent in calls to their helpline for this month - from 246 in 2011, to 351 in 2012, but also report an increased rate of disclosure to their outreach worker.

Sarah Learmonth, from CRASAC, told WVoN, ”Our Youth Worker is having more children approach her while she is doing preventative training at schools, to disclose, and the other 2 outreach workers are seeing the same trend.

“Our counselling referrals are up by 28 per cent so far this year and referrals to the Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) for people either in crisis or who are going through the criminal justice process and need more practical support have increased by 25 per cent.”

With such an increase in demand centres, like CRASAC, across the country are in depserate need of additional funding so that they can continue to provide this much needed resource for victims.

Some have even gone as far as asking the BBC to support them financially, or at the very least to advertise the helpline numbers when reporting on the news story.

CRASAC said: “The BBC and ITV haven't seen fit to give Rape Crisis or NAPAC free advertising and if kids want to disclose because of Savile triggering their thoughts, how lucky do they have to be to end up in one of our Youth Worker's events in order to tell someone.”

It’s not an anomaly specific to the Savile news story.

Very often when a high profile rape or abuse story hits the mainstream media, calls to such centres increase.

CRASAC reported a similar increase earlier this year when footballer Ched Evans was convicted of rape.

Last year helplines reported as much as an 800 per cent increase following a storyline in Coronation Street which featured rape.

So why do we see this huge spike in calls?

Their are two main reasons calls to centres increase at times like this.

Firstly, seeing and hearing about rape and child abuse has a ‘trigger’ effect on other victims, causing them to relive painful memories of their own abuse and reach out for help.

But secondly, when victims hear news reports of other victims being taken seriously, and see rapists being convicted, it gives them increased confidence that their own story will be believed and listened to.

Alan Collins from Pannone, a firm of solicitors which specialises in helping victims of sex abuse, says it has seen a five-fold increase in people coming forward since women started to come forward and report Savile’s abuse.

He said, “In my opinion that enables the victims to say, ‘Yes, if I now step forward and take that step of reporting what happened to me, it will be taken seriously – I’m not going to be ridiculed, I’m not going to be dismissed’.”

Sadly we still live in a culture that does not always readily believe the victim, whether they are a child or adult that is reporting sexual abuse or rape.

Rape apology is rife and it is shockingly common for judges and jurys to seriously take into consideration a woman’s attire, previous sexual encounters, flirting or state of intoxication when passing verdicts in rape cases.

In the UK only 6-7 per cent of rapes reported to the police end in conviction.

Rape Crisis estimates that 40 per cent of adults who are raped tell no one about it and that 31 per cent of children who are abused reach adulthood without having disclosed their abuse.

Earlier this year website Mumsnet launched their We Believe You campaign, to try and encourage victims that their voice will be heard, as sadly, they’re often not.

As if further proof was needed that victims of sexual abuse are not always taken seriously, last month we saw the condeming report published by the Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board, after nine men were jailed in May for grooming girls as young as 13.

They found that despite victims reporting to multiple agencies, including the police and social services, the abuse continued.

Unbelievably, the report also shows some officials believed vulnerable girls as young as 10 – who were being groomed for sexual abuse – were “making their own choices”.

There has been a lot of talk in the media about the Savile case being indicative of a different time and a different culture, where abuse and cover-ups like that could continue unhindered, buoyed by the spirit of sexual liberatation of the 60s and 70s.

Oh, if it were so, that these shocking revelations were of a certain time and place now long gone.

As the deluge of calls to helplines goes to show, abuse is still happening all around us.

And it’s saddening that it’s only at times of national news stories or soap opera plots that many victims feel able to come forward and report.

We need to work toward a significant change in our culture, towards a point where victims of rape and abuse know they will be listened to,  believed and helped, at any time.

If you have been the victim of rape or sexual abuse here are the number of some national and local helplines that you can call in confidence:

Rape Crisis UK & Wales freephone helpline:  0808 802 9999
12 – 2.30pm
7 – 9.30pm

National Association for Children Abused in Childhood  Support Line: 0800 085 3330

Childline  0800 1111

CRASAC  Helpline: 024 7627 7777