Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Women’s sports round-up: 21-27 January

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 07:00 AM PST

2013 Australian Open champion Victoria AzarenkaWelcome to our weekly bulletin of British women's results and news from around the globe.

Cricket:

The cricket World Cup saga has continued this week on two fronts.

In a move widely condemned by most cricket experts as disrespectful to the women’s game, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to move all of the Women's World Cup games scheduled to take place at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, so that the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) can use it for the final of the Indian men’s domestic season's Ranji Trophy.

The tournament is now set to be played at five stadiums: the Barabati Stadium and the DRIEMS stadium in Cuttack, and the MIG Club, Brabourne Stadium and MCA’s Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai.

This change also helps tackle the security concerns raised about the safety of the Pakistan team in India. All Pakistan’s group matches are now to be played in Cuttack.

There are several changes to the tournament schedule. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has published details of these changes. See their website for details.

Cycling:

The Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling women's team is due to launch this week.

The full team comprises; Elinor Barker (GB), Beatrice Bartelloni (Ita), Giorgia Bronzini (Ita), Emily Collins (NZ), Rochelle Gilmore (Aus), Mayuko Hagiwara (Jpn), Dani King (GB), Lauren Kitchen (Aus), Amy Roberts (GB), Joanna Rowsell (GB), Ana Bianca Schnitzmeier (Ger) and Laura Trott (GB).

The launch follows the announcement last week that the national cycling charity CTC is to launch a women’s team, and undoubtedly represents a great move forward for women's cycling.

It means there will be 33 registered women's teams for the 2013 road season.

But Lizzie Armistead, one of the sport's greatest critics when it comes to sexism, is not convinced that the introduction of new teams is the answer.

She is concerned that the inequality in pay and prize money, and the lack of media coverage for women's cycling are just as important.

In an interview with the BBC she said, “the issue is much bigger than simply putting a few jerseys on a few women’s backs”.

And as promised, we also have the final result of the women's omnium at the UCI Track Cycling World Cup, held in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

The winner was Sarah Hammer of the USA with a total of 14 points. Elinor Barker improved her position on the second day to finish 15th with 79 points.

Football:

Tickets for the 2013 UEFA Women's Champions League final, to be played on 23 May at Stamford Bridge, went on sale on 22 January.

In an interview with the London Evening Standard former England Captain and ambassador for the final, Faye White, said, "Women's football is growing in popularity at an impressive rate.

“The UEFA Women's Champions League final is a fantastic opportunity for fans to come together to see top-quality football played in a prestigious stadium.

“I hope that it will help inspire a new generation of female footballers in England."

Kick-off will be 7.30pm. Adult tickets will be priced at £10, with juniors only £5. Tickets can be purchased from the Chelsea FC website.

Netball:

England made short work of Australia for the second time in a week on last week, as they beat them in front of a 7000-strong Wembley Arena crowd 51-49.

This meant they had already taken the series before the final match, a historic result given that before the series, England had only beaten the Aussies twice since 1981.

Another 7000 people saw them complete a 3-0 whitewash in style at the NIA in Birmingham on Saturday, taking the game 58-51.

Tennis:

It was a somewhat surprising line-up for the Australian Women's final on 26 January.

The seemingly unstoppable Maria Sharapova was dumped out at the semi-final stage by 6th seed Li Na.

Top seed Victoria Azarenka booked her final place by beating Sloane Stephens, shock semi-finalist and conqueror of Laura Robson.

The final was scrappy with defending champion Azarenka, losing the first set, before finally winning 4-6 6-4 6-3.

Gussie (Gertrude Agusta) Moran died this week, aged 89.

Nicknamed "Gorgeous Gussie", Moran peaked at no. 4 in the US rankings, but her fame rests largely on the controversy caused when she wore knickers trimmed with lace at Wimbledon in 1949.

The lace, clearly visible to the watching public, scandalised the All England club and caused the outfit's designer, Ted Tinling, to be fired from his job for "having drawn attention to the sexual area."

Olympics sex-trafficking fears reviewed

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 04:55 AM PST

traffickingPolice measures had a damaging affect on trafficked women’s safety, says London Assembly member.

Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Boff announced last week that government resources to combat sex-trafficking during the London Summer Olympics were wasted.

It appeared that only four cases of sex-trafficking were identified during the event period despite an extra £500,000 being spent on the police-driven campaign.

The hype around sex-trafficking was escalated in the run-up to the Olympics, proving a popular headline among numerous media centres.

However the ‘heavy-handed‘ approach used by the police to prevent any illegal trade from booming as a result of the Olympics did raise concerns.

Measures used included simply closing down brothels in East London and its surrounding boroughs and forcing sex-workers off the streets.

The sudden increase in police raids in these specific areas saw around 80 brothels closed down by April 2012,  twice as many as were closed in the whole of 2011.

In his report, Silence on Violence, Boff insisted that such measures had a far more damaging effect in preventing victims of sex-trafficking getting to safety.

He condemned both police officials and SCD9, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) dealing with sex-trafficking crimes, claiming that their raids had a less than 1 per cent success rate in finding victims.

In the 2012 report, Boff claimed that the Olympics led to heightened media interest in the idea that trafficking and prostitution in London would rise.

As a result, the Metropolitan Police Service was given additional funds to tackle sex trafficking.

However, he found “no strong evidence that trafficking for sexual exploitation does in fact increase during sporting events nor that such trafficking or prostitution had increased in London”.

“In fact my research found that a decrease in prostitution had been reported by police in London,” Boff insisted.

"Yet a huge amount of time, money and resources was poured into this search, which turned out to be nothing more than tilting at windmills,” Boff added.

Boff said that many women had refused to come forward because they were afraid that instead of receiving help, they would become the “focus of police attention” and be charged with crimes.

He said that despite the 2005 changes in the law to save victims of sex-trafficking, the introduction of harsher regulations in the sex-trade were proving harmful.

“The impact has been to force sex workers ever more into the shadows, and further and further away from the support mechanisms that might give them some kind of protection, and also a route out of sex work and prostitution, if that’s what they choose,” he said.

He said that new measures needed to be implemented where police co-operation with sex workers could be encouraged.

“Sex workers need to be included in the strategy for policing of sex-trafficking,” Boff said. “They are a good source of information of whether or not any trafficking takes place.

“By building a better relationship with the police, it means that those women who do feel themselves in peril, or are in many ways coerced or controlled, will have at least have a route through to report that complaint,” he added.

Georgina Perry, working for Open Doors, which offers NHS services for sex workers, agreed that concerns over the rise in sex-trafficking during the Olympics were unfounded.

In a survey carried out by 100 sex workers, it was found that at least 58 per cent had fewer clients during the Olympic period.

Perry, in conjunction with Boff’s report, claimed that not all sex-workers were associated with brothels and that clear distinctions needed to be made between ‘street women’ and ‘off-street women’.

“The women who sell sex off-street are usually here for a short amount of time,” Perry said in a recent interview with TrustLaw.

“They are building up a nest egg. Then they are going home to their home country because most women who are off-street are migrants.

“Our street women are very, very different. They’re usually involved in the sex industry because their life has broken down massively.

“[They have] serious mental health problems, they’re homeless, their benefits have dropped, they’ve got drug and alcohol problems.

“What they very often want is help to stabilise their lives, and then help to move from that point to making safer choices.

“It’s not safe standing on a street corner at four o’clock in the morning when you're off your head on drugs and alcohol,” Perry pointed out.

“The biggest issue for us is around safety, and this takes me back to the London Olympics because such was the hysteria around the need to target prostitutes to get them away from London,” Perry added.

“Of course [the] sex workers didn’t just go away, they simply just went elsewhere, where there were no services.”

And that, she continued, meant that if they were robbed or raped or assaulted, they couldn’t call the police because they were afraid that the police would start to investigate them as criminals rather than investigate the actual crimes that have been perpetrated against them.

It is thought that more research into the reasons behind sex-trafficking are needed in order to offer better solutions and better support for those forced into the illegal trade.

Rise in domestic sex trafficking

Posted: 28 Jan 2013 01:43 AM PST

trafficking- Photobucket - cianjurcybercity[1]Women and children are being forced into modern-day slavery.

In the USA, January was declared National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month by President Barack Obama.

In the same month as Obama is re-inaugurated, America is marking the 150th anniversary of the emancipation proclamation, the order which abolished slavery in the country.

According to the US government's own report into human trafficking released last year, an estimated 27 million people, including children, are still victims of modern-day slavery across the globe.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that 59 per cent of trafficking victims are women, with women and girls accounting for three quarters of all trafficked people.

An estimated 27 per cent of victims are children, with two in three of those being girls.

The sex industry is the biggest driver for the trade in people, particularly women and girls; 58 per cent of all cases reported by the UN between 2007-2010 were linked to sexual exploitation.

According to Anti-Slavery International, this figure shoots up to 98 per cent for trafficked women and girls, and female victims also make up the majority of people trafficked for other reasons, including forced labour and domestic servitude.

Victims of human trafficking are often perceived as migrant workers, looking for a better life and coerced or deceived into exploitation.

They are stigmatised as illegal immigrants, isolated by language barriers and often criminalised by the countries they find themselves in.

Figures released by the UK's inter-departmental ministerial group on human trafficking last year show a rise in the number of people trafficked into the UK; the BBC reported 946 victims, compared with 710 in 2010.

The figures are based on the number of victims reported to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the framework for identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking in the UK.

Due to the nature of the crime however, no one really knows the exact number of people trafficked into the UK year on year.

According to the government report, Nigeria, Vietnam and Romania are the largest contributors to the trade in human beings the UK, and it is easy to view it as an issue that affects people from outside our borders.

In reality, an increasing number of people are being trafficked within the UK, and, disturbingly, we are seeing an even larger increase in the incidence of child sex trafficking within our borders.

The ongoing case of six girls in Oxford who were groomed, raped and trafficked around the UK for prostitution is a harrowing example of the trade in vulnerable children that happens on our own soil.

According to the Guardian, the nine men are charged with a total of 51 offences which took place over a period of eight years, including forcing a child into prostitution and seven counts of rape of a child under 13.

Last year Rochdale hit the headlines for equally disturbing reasons, when nine men were jailed for grooming and sexually exploiting teenage girls as young as 13, a tragedy exacerbated by reported shortcomings in the |UK’s social services system.

The number of children trafficked within the UK specifically for sex has rocketed by 84 per cent in the last year, according to figures from Barnado's reported in Metro this month.

Ann Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo’s, said: “We are shocked at the rise in the number of children reporting they have been moved around the country by abusers.

“Domestic trafficking of children for sex is a sophisticated type of exploitation, a sinister form of organised violation through networks of criminals.

“Nobody currently knows the full extent of these crimes because of their hidden nature, but what we do know is that every time we open a new service for victims it quickly becomes fully subscribed.

“If we are to save children from suffering for years at the hands of their abusers, more must be done by the authorities to identify victims of child sexual exploitation who are being internally trafficked and to stop this activity earlier on.”

Convictions for human trafficking in the UK remain low, with just eight convictions recorded in 2011. Six members of the Rochdale gang became the first people in Britain to be convicted of sex trafficking in May 2012.

It is 180 years since slavery was abolished in the UK and what was then its sprawling empire, but in 2013 we are witnessing an increase in modern-day slavery.

And it is driven in a large part by the trade in women and girls for sex.

The government launched its human trafficking strategy in 2011, but the Guardian reports that a year after David Cameron pledged to make Britain a 'word leader' in the fight against people trafficking, the government's spending cuts are threatening the future of its anti-trafficking unit.

Unfortunately the slave trade is not something that we, nor the USA, can assign to history, as more and more cases of domestic and international trafficking are reported.

International travel and modern technology have made it increasing easy to move people around the globe, yet the trafficking of human beings is a reflection of the inequalities that still exist within societies and across borders today.

Unfortunately, as long as the sex trade fuels demand in the UK, vulnerable women and girls will continue to be targeted by organised gangs for sexual exploitation.