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| 19 Jul 2009 - 10:24 | Women's Learning Partnership
URL: www.learningpartnership.org/en/advocacy/ . . .
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Iranian women's rights activist Shadi Sadr beaten, arrested and disappeared
Escalation in arbitrary arrests and disappearances of individuals and human rights defenders
July 17, 2009
Shadi Sadr, a lawyer and prominent women’s rights activist working with the One Million Signatures Campaign, was arrested today by plain clothes security officers and taken to an undisclosed location. The men pulled her into a car as she walked along a busy road and beat her as she struggled to escape.
Continues...
www.learningpartnership.org/en/advocacy/alerts/iranwomenarrests0307
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| 18 Jul 2009 - 11:21 | Viva La Feminista
URL: www.vivalafeminista.com/2009_07_01_archi . . .
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Viva La Feminista is written by a woman living in Chicago trying to navigate and understand the intersection between being a feminist, a mom, and a Latina
www.vivalafeminista.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
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| 18 Jul 2009 - 11:03 | Women's e-news
URL: www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/ . . .
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Cheers and Jeers of the week
women's enews
Asylum for DV Survivors; Afghan Law Problematic
By Kayla Hutzler
WeNews correspondent
Cheers
Female immigrants who have experienced domestic violence can now seek asylum in the United States, thanks to a decision made by the Obama administration in a recent immigration appeals court filing, the New York Times reported July 16. The case involved a Mexican woman who said her husband had repeatedly raped her at gunpoint, held her prisoner and once tried to burn her alive while she was pregnant in Mexico. She escaped with her children and came to the U.S. in 2004, the Associated Press reported. Just last year, the Bush administration insisted in the same case that the woman did not meet U.S. asylum standards.
The new standards set forth by this decision require women to prove that they were abused, treated as subordinates or property and that they could not find help or safety in their own country, the New York Times reported.
More News to Cheer This Week:
In a settlement announced July 15, the state of Michigan will pay $100 million to more than 500 female inmates who said they were sexually assaulted, abused and harassed by the male correction staff, reported the Detroit Free Press on July 16. The decision comes after two female prisoners were awarded almost $60 million in a previous trial, reported the article. "This is a good deal for the state," Deborah LaBelle, the female inmates' lawyer, told the Detroit Free Press.
The equal opportunities committee of Uganda's Parliament has requested that the government build a safe haven for girls in Sabiny--an eastern province of Uganda--who are at risk of undergoing female genital mutation, New Vision (Uganda) reported July 15. The committee is asking for a boarding school to be created where young girls can be sent; it is hoped this school will allow the girls to escape the community-based practice of cutting, common in Sabiny. Many parents don't want their daughters to undergo this painful experience, yet the community often pressures them, the newspaper reports.
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Jeers
Shadi Sadr, a women's rights advocate, lawyer and journalist, was arrested on the morning of July 17 in Tehran, Iran, on her way to attend Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's sermon, the Los Angeles Times reported July 17. Sadr is a Women's eNews 21 Leader for the 21st Century 2004. Rafsanjani is a former president of Iran and is now a leader in the opposition movement; his prayer service was attended by thousands. Witnesses say that Sadr was walking with a group of friends when officers in plain clothes forced her into a waiting car. The article reported that Sadr has had clashes with the authorities after her 2007arrest and two-week jail stay.
Also, Jeanne Brooks, a committed Women's eNews reader, brought to the attention of Women's eNews editors that statements in the Afghan marriage law, which we cheered last week, allow a husband to cut off his wife financially if she does not submit to him at his request. The law also has a clause that allows a wife to work outside the home only with her husband's permission. Activists criticized the law this week: A July 14 article by the Associated Press reported that "critics saw it as a return to Taliban-style oppression of women by a government that was supposed to be promoting democracy and human rights."
The activists' criticism coincides with a new report from the U.N. showing that risks to women in Afghanistan are growing under President Hamid Karzai's administration. According to the report, entitled "Silence is Violence," it's not just Islamic militants who are to blame--the violence comes from all sectors of society and is worsening due to little intervention by government institutions and leaders, reported Eurasianet on July 15.
More News to Jeer This Week:
Natalya Estemirova, a 50-year-old human rights activist in Chechnya, a Russian republic in the Caucasus region, was found dead on the side of a highway in a neighboring republic, Canada's National Post reported July 16. Estemirova had been captured outside her home around 8:30 a.m. and was found later that afternoon with bullet wounds in her chest and head, the article reported. The activist had most recently been looking into numerous kidnappings that she believed were ordered by Chechen president Ramzan A. Kadyrov. On July 15 Kadyrov said he would "spare no expense" to find her killers.
A new report from the U.N. highlights the growing problem of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how little is being done to protect women and children in the country, the Associated Press reported July 16. The report states that only 27 soldiers were convicted for crimes of sexual violence in the provinces of North and South Kivu in 2008; there were 7,703 cases of rape reported in these regions last year. The report also estimates that only 11 percent of donor funds for sexual violence have been allocated for the physical protection of women and girls, according to MONUC, the U.N.'s Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kayla Hutzler, a journalism major at Manhattan College, is an editorial intern with Women's eNews.
related links...
www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/4076/context/archive
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| 18 Jul 2009 - 10:47 | Womens enews
URL: www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3732
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Syrian Case Tests Tolerance on Killing Kinswomen
By Dominique Soguel
WeNews correspondent
Syria just opened its first official shelter for battered women and has enacted reforms favorable to women in recent years. But safety activists can't rest as long as authorities tolerate families who consider it honorable to kill their kinswomen.
Article...
www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3732
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| 17 Jul 2009 - 10:40 | CIMAC noticias
URL: www.cimac.org.mx
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Este año, tres de cada cuatro fueron violadas y torturadas
Veracruz: 125 casos de feminicidio en 18 meses
Por Laura Castro Medina/corresponsal
Xalapa, Ver., 16 julio 09 (CIMAC).- A pesar de la creación de leyes y programas en favor de las mujeres, aumentan los índices de violencia feminicida en el estado. Las autoridades judiciales callan, pero investigaciones periodísticas develan que al menos 82 mujeres fueron asesinadas violentamente en 2008. En lo que va de 2009, ya suman 43 nuevas víctimas. Prácticamente la totalidad de los delitos permanecen impunes.
Un total de 125 mujeres han sido asesinadas durante los últimos 18 meses en tierras veracruzanas, de acuerdo con el compendio realizado por la diputada Dalia Edith Pérez Castañeda, integrante de la comisión de Equidad y Género del Congreso de Veracruz, basado en datos publicados por los medios impresos de la entidad.
La legisladora mencionó que debido a que la Procuraduría General de Justicia de Veracruz no ha proporcionado la información oficial sobre los homicidios registrados en 2008 y 2009, un equipo de colaboradoras se dio a la tarea de investigar los casos reportados en periódicos impresos de la entidad.
Estimó que el número real de mujeres victimizadas en grado extremo es mayor, pues los homicidios en zonas serranas permanecen ocultos aun para los medios de comunicación.
El levantamiento de datos incluye nombres de las víctimas, edad, lugar del crimen, características del mismo y el estado que guarda la investigación.
Lamentablemente, de los 43 casos de feminicidio de este año, sólo 11 (25 por ciento) se han esclarecido, y no como resultado de una minuciosa investigación. Se trata de aquellos casos en donde los familiares, ya sea padre, esposo o pareja sentimental, se declararon confesos de homicidio.
Entre las víctimas del presente año, 8 eran menores de edad, y más del 75 por ciento de las mujeres victimadas fueron violadas, torturadas y asesinadas con arma blanca o por golpes contundentes. Sólo 8 de ellas tuvieron una muerte fulminante con arma de fuego.
Violaciones y tortura prevalecieron durante 2008. De acuerdo al estudio de las 82 mujeres asesinadas, siete eran menores de edad. También prevaleció la violencia motivada por familiares de las víctimas, quienes las mataron a golpes o con arma blanca.
EXIGEN ESCLARECIMIENTO
El elevado número de homicidios de mujeres en Veracruz ha propiciado que integrantes de organizaciones y dependencias de apoyo a la mujer levanten la voz y exijan el esclarecimiento de todos los homicidios. Además, piden que se adopten leyes y programas efectivos para prevenir el feminicidio en todos los sectores poblacionales de la entidad, explicó Mayela García, directora del Centro de Información par el Desarrollo de la Mujer
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| 17 Jul 2009 - 10:29 | Espreso Chiapas
URL: www.expresochiapas.com/noticias/estatal/ . . .
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La incómoda fama a la bombera Luz Haydée
Viernes, 17 de Julio de 2009 03:21
Heroína en la Guardería ABC
Silvia Núñez Esquer Hermosillo, Son. (CIMAC) l Una fotografía de Luz Haydée Tapia Uriarte en la portada de un diario local dio la vuelta al mundo. Pero no le gusta, la hiere porque le recuerda el incendio de la Guardería ABC ocurrido el 5 de junio pasado, que dejó un saldo de 48 niñas y niños asfixiados y calcinados.
Protagonista en la tragedia, de carácter templado, la bombera profesional y paramédica que salvó la vida de niñas y niños cuenta, 40 días después del siniestro, su experiencia en el siniestro que le dio una fama incómoda.
Lo importante para mí -dice sin aparente emoción- "es prevenir incidentes y desastres evitables". Acostumbrada a situaciones de riesgo, su misión es salvar vidas humanas o pertenencias valiosas para propietarios. Estudió la carrera de Paramédica en la Universidad Tecnológica de Hermosillo (UTH), fue integrante de la primera generación, tiene dos años como bombera y cinco que egresó de la carrera. Ella es la única mujer en Hermosillo contratada como bombera, sus compañeras son voluntarias.
Continues....
www.expresochiapas.com/noticias/estatal/6620-la-incomoda-fama-a-la-bombera-luz-haydee.html
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| 17 Jul 2009 - 09:56 | Paul Rieckhoff, Huffington Post
URL: www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/ga . . .
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GAO: VA Failing to Serve Women WarriorsPaul Rieckhoff, 07.17.2009
This week, the Government Accountability Office released a stunning new report detailing significant barriers that many female veterans face in accessing health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
If you blinked, you could’ve missed it. With the media’s obsession over Michael Jackson’s death and Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings plastered across cable news shows, an important story might have skipped your radar.
This week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, released a stunning new report detailing significant barriers that many female veterans face in accessing health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Not just for policy wonks, this report should be required reading for every American. Some of the critical findings include:
Continues...
www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/gao-va-failing-to-serve-w_b_237057.html
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 19:11 | Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
URL: action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Craigslis . . .
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Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
CATW's Amicus Brief in Dart v. Craigslist, Inc.
Author(s): CATW (July 2009)
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) has just submitted an Amicus Brief in support of the lawsuit against Craigslist filed by Sheriff Dart of Cook County, Illinois seeking to hold them accountable for their role in facilitating sex trafficking. CATW’s Amicus Brief contains an impressive list of 31 co-signers representing a wide range of domestic and international members of the anti-human trafficking movement.
The goal of the law suit is singular: close the ‘adult services’ section of Craigslist. “It is well known that Craigslist’s ‘adult services’ section has become the technological red light district for pimps/traffickers and johns,” says CATW’s Co-Executive Director, Norma Ramos, Esq.
“Sheriff Dart's Craigslist lawsuit requests the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to compel Craigslist to no longer host these ads. In doing so an industry standard could be set which would help create a human trafficking-free Internet,” says CATW’s Founder, Dorchen Leidholdt, Esq.
“For far too long, Craigslist has been profiting from the facilitation of the prostitution and trafficking of women and minors in Cook County. It is time this website be held accountable for the harm that they continually enable,” says Rachel Durchslag, Executive Director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (CAASE.)
“Craigslist continues to cynically profit from the rank exploitation of others by functioning as an online pimp,” says Ms. Ramos. Our Amicus Brief, prepared by CATW’s pro bono law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP, demonstrates the widespread support for Sheriff Dart’s bold legal efforts to hold Craigslist accountable.
CATW Craigslist Amicus Brief
action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Craigslist%20Amicus%20Brief%20-%20Website.pdf
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 11:50 | Amecopress
URL: www.amecopress.net/spip.php?article2287
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Colombia: Comunicación contra la violencia hacia las mujeres
Tres campañas con diferentes estrategias sobre la violencia de género
Bogotá, Colombia, Lunes 13 de julio de 2009, por Ángela Castellanos Aranguren
Bogotá, julio 09. AmecoPressSEMlac.- Por primera vez Colombia está siendo impactada simultáneamente por tres diferentes estrategias de comunicación sobre las violencias contra la mujer. Se trata de campañas que, sin proponérselo, han coincidido en el tiempo debido a la urgente necesidad de sensibilizar, concientizar e informar sobre el maltrato contra las colombianas.
De acuerdo con la Fundación Plan, una ONG dedicada a la infancia y adolescencia, cada hora 20 niñas son víctimas de maltrato y diariamente 100 mujeres son golpeadas por sus parejas.
Décadas atrás estas agresiones no se contabilizaban. Desde los años noventa se empezaron a reunir y a estudiar. Pero es ahora que se están registrando y divulgando masivamente, no sólo por grupos feministas, sino por entidades del Estado, instituciones académicas, organizaciones no gubernamentales, y hasta por artistas.
De hecho, hoy se aprecia que estas diversas instancias han unido esfuerzos para apoyar campañas, basadas la una en el arte, otra en la radio y una tercera en la comunicación personal.
"Ni con el pétalo de una rosa"
Continua...
www.amecopress.net/spip.php?article2287
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 11:44 | Amecopress
URL: www.amecopress.net/spip.php?article2293
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Constituido el Foro Social contra la Trata de Seres Humanos con Fines de Explotación Sexual
Integrado por administraciones públicas, ONGs y otras instituciones
Estado Español, Comunicados, Instituciones de igualdad, Violencia de género, Madrid, Miércoles 15 de julio de 2009, por Redacción AmecoPress
Madrid, 14 de julio 09. Redacción AmecoPress.- La ministra de Igualdad, Bibiana Aído, ha presidido en la sede de su Departamento, la constitución del Foro Social contra la Trata de Seres Humanos con Fines de Explotación Sexual, “un instrumento de cooperación, colaboración e intercambio entre las Administraciones públicas, las Instituciones y la sociedad civil, para cumplir con el objetivo de garantizar la coordinación y la coherencia de actuaciones desde una perspectiva integral y los derechos de las víctimas”, ha señalado Aído.
La constitución de este foro, integrado por las administraciones públicas, las ONGs y otras instituciones implicadas en la asistencia a las víctimas y la lucha contra este delito, está contemplada en el Plan Integral contra la trata de seres humanos con fines de explotación sexual aprobado por Consejo de Ministros el pasado 12 de diciembre. Su puesta en marcha permitirá intercambiar puntos de vista y realizar el seguimiento del plan.
El Plan Integral contra la Trata de Seres Humanos
Durante su intervención, la titular de Igualdad, se ha referido a este plan como “una prioridad de este Ministerio” y ha recordado que tiene una vigencia de 3 años y ha añadido que se trata de “un plan complejo con 62 medidas que afectan a 11 Ministerios.
Continua...
www.amecopress.net/spip.php?article2293
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 11:20 | New York Times
URL: www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/16asylum.h . . .
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New Policy Permits Asylum for Battered Women
PRESTON
Published: July 15, 2009
The Obama administration has opened the way for foreign women who are victims of severe domestic beatings and sexual abuse to receive asylum in the United States. The action reverses a Bush administration stance in a protracted and passionate legal battle over the possibilities for battered women to become refugees.
Continues...
www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/16asylum.html
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 11:06 | Global Sisterhood Network
URL: www.global-sisterhood-network.org/conten . . .
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India: Raped tribal women betrayed & abandoned by National Human Rights Commission
Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 28, July 18, 2009
The Evil That Men Do
Tribal women claiming rape by Salwa Judum men in Chhattisgarh put a question mark on the NHRC, which rejected their testimonies.
Photographs by SHAILENDRA PANDEY
By AJIT SAHI Editor-at-Large
Assaulted Raped Women turned away by the NHRC seek justice
In the Indian setting, refusal to act on the testimony of the victim of sexual assault in the absence of corroboration as a rule is adding insult to injury. A girl or a woman in the tradition- bound non-permissive society of India would be extremely reluctant even to admit that any incident that is likely to reflect on her chastity had ever occurred… [A rape victim’s testimony] does not require corroboration from any other evidence, including the evidence of a doctor. Supreme Court justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam, July 2008
FOR DECADES, the Supreme Court of India has cleaved to a rigorous legal standard in cases of rape: the testimony of the victim is enough evidence to launch the prosecution of the accused. Successive judgments over the years have reinforced this position. Thousands of convictions of alleged rapists have been effectively obtained on the basis of victims’ testimonies, with no corroborative evidence sought or offered. Often, the courts have overlooked minor discrepancies in the victims’ accounts, if the main narrative holds up.
Jurists and social commentators in India have long argued that, apart from being a most heinous crime against a woman’s person, her rape doubly curses her in the Indian society by imparting her a stigma that no other crime matches. That is why criminal investigation processes that the police must follow, as well as the judicial procedures prescribed when charges of rape arise, are unambiguous. This is best illustrated in the case of Hindi film actor Shiney Ahuja, who was arrested last month in Mumbai when his maidservant accused him of raping her. Ahuja has been denied bail, and rightly so, for his right to seek justice shall arise at the trial and not before or outside it.
What happens when the victims are destitute tribal women with no access to police, judiciary, media?
Continues
www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2324/59/
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| 16 Jul 2009 - 10:21 | ex-president Jimmy Carter, article
URL: www.theage.com.au/opinion/losing-my-reli . . .
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A MUST READ, SAVE, AND DISTRIBUTE!
Losing my religion for equality
Jimmy Carter
July 15, 2009
Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.
I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.
At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.
Continues....
www.theage.com.au/opinion/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html
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| 15 Jul 2009 - 21:45 | Wendy
wendy@sbchamber.org
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I was a victim of domestic violence, recieved victim compensation for my injury and counseling. In the police report it was recomemded that charges be filed for domestic abuse with the DA. Although my ex and I were not together I was threatend on a regular basis and had documented every incedent. The DA assigned never interviewed me and the pending case was dropped. There was plenty of evidence even without my records. I have good reason to believe that a family member influenced the DA and my life had been turned upside down. How do I voice the injustice that was done? I recieved victim compensation yet the abuser is not charged? That's absurd and I still recieve threats although not as frequent but my young son is terrified of him and is afraid to say he wants to be with me on a most of the time. He is 13 and has the right to choose yet he has seen what his father got away with so he will not voice his feelings. I myself am terrified to go through a system that has failed my family so miserably. Any thoughts or experiances are greatly needed right now.
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| 15 Jul 2009 - 10:14 | IPS Noticias
URL: www.ipsnoticias.net/nota.asp?idnews=9267 . . .
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POBLACIÓN: Sí, los adolescentes tienen sexo
Ben Case entrevista a NAFISSATOU DIOP, del Population Council
NACIONES UNIDAS, 10 jul (IPS) - Asumir que los adolescentes son sexualmente activos, sea dentro o fuera del matrimonio, es fundamental para diseñar e implementar campañas de planificación familiar eficaces, según la demógrafa Nafissatou Diop.
Durante décadas, Diouf ha establecido programas y realizado numerosos estudios sobre salud reproductiva, VIH/sida (síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida) y desarrollo en África occidental.
Adjunta a la oficina de Dakar del Population Council (Consejo de Población), una organización no gubernamental internacional, tiene un doctorado en demografía y posgrados en socioeconomía del desarrollo y sociología.
IPS dialogó con Diop en vísperas del Día Mundial de la Población, que se celebra el 11 de este mes, sobre los muchos obstáculos que se interponen ante la educación para la salud reproductiva.
Continua...
www.ipsnoticias.net/nota.asp?idnews=92673
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| 15 Jul 2009 - 09:55 | IPS Gender Wire
URL: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47670
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FILM: Graphically Condemning a "Barbaric and Horrific Punishment"
By Sonali Salgado
NEW YORK, Jul 15 (IPS) - Director Cyrus Nowrasteh's latest feature film "The Stoning of Soraya M." begins with a car radio blaring the successes of Iran's 1979 Revolution.
In a few seconds, the movie transports viewers to a riverbed, where an elderly woman named Zarah tends to the body of her niece, whom the town mullahs framed for adultery and then stoned to death - the appropriate punishment in the new Islamic Republic of Iran - a day before.
The tale of Zarah and Soraya is a true story, first documented in the 1994 book "The Stoning of Soraya M." by the late French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam.
Having written critically of the regime, in 1986 Sahebjam was journeying undercover through his native Iran when he stumbled on the village of Kapuyeh. There, he met Zarah and heard her account.
As it traces Soraya Manoucherhi's journey from picking flowers with her two young daughters and sewing a new skirt for her aunt to bleeding profusely and finally dying at her stoning, the film sends a powerful message.
Continues...
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47670
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| 13 Jul 2009 - 21:12 | Women's Justice Center
URL: www.justicewomen.com/pw_whereisthewomens . . .
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Breaking and Entering the Thick Blue Line
~
Where is the Women's Movement?
Having exhausted judicial avenues to try and save her career, ex-police officer Debra Hartley is exasperated, tired, and miffed; but she's nowhere near giving up! On July 3, she set out on foot from her home in northern Pennsylvania to walk 225 miles to the White House. Debra couldn't win justice for herself, so she's trekking the distance to spotlight the rampant sex discrimination in law enforcement that dooms the careers of so many other good female police officers, and robs our communities of the immense benefits women bring to policing. (Contact and Support Debra Hartley at dlh304@psu.edu )
Two decades of research makes clear, female officers have dramatically lower rates of excessive use of force and citizen complaints than do male officers. Female officers are also better at de-escalating volatile situations, at handling cases of violence against women, and in carrying out the goals of community policing. In short, female officers overall bring with them exactly the improvements that so many communities across the country say they are seeking in their police forces. (See links at end of article.)
Yet despite the proven benefits, and despite the fact that ever more women are entering policing, the nationwide percentage of women in policing is actually going down, from a mere 14% females in the year 2,000 to 12% today. The pattern is disheartening. Women get hired on, chewed up, and spit out in what Debra Hartley so aptly refers to as "the revolving door". Studies also provide a window on the problem. The number one on-the-job stress for female officers, studies show, is not the criminals, nor the rigors of the work. It's the attitudes of the male officers.
It's Not Working Anywhere
Continues...
www.justicewomen.com/pw_whereisthewomensmovement.html
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| 13 Jul 2009 - 16:07 | Central American Women's Network
Katherine@cawn.org
URL: www.cawn.org
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Honduras: Military coup leaves women at risk of arrest, disappearance, home raids, dis-employment
Friday 10 July 2009
PRESS RELEASE:
WOMEN IN THE HONDURAN CRISIS
Women are in the forefront of the protest against the military coup of 28 June in Honduras. In the last week of June, as the threat of a coup loomed, women’s organisations sprang into action, organising marches, mobilising women, writing and distributing bulletins, and sending information and eyewitness images around the world by email, text and social networking media.
Honduran women’s organisations and individual women from rural and urban areas have come together to resist and protest peacefully in response to the coup and the events that followed. On 29 June they released a public statement calling for the return of the rule of law and respect for human rights by peaceful means, and they have not stopped their communications, despite frequent power cuts. The mainstream news channels are strictly controlled, so their reports provide crucial information by their immediacy and by giving a voice to ordinary people, especially women.
Women living in fear
Nearly two weeks after the coup, fear of detention and disappearance by the security forces, fear of violence in the demonstrations, fear that their houses will be raided and their families harmed, is currently a daily reality for women. Women in poverty-stricken country villages report that the army is forcing their young sons many of them minors into military service.
The lives of both women and men are being made difficult and dangerous by the daily curfew between the early hours of the evening and the early morning, and by the suspension of the rights of association and organisation, freedom of movement, of speech and to protest.
Mirta Kennedy, director of one women’s organisation, the Honduran Women’s Studies Centre (CEM-H), reports: ‘Our office is under surveillance every day by police or civilian operatives in vehicles with tinted windows … We are taking part in demonstrations hemmed in by heavily-armed soldiers and police with riot shields, there are tanks and cannon, and there are snipers on the roofs.’
The curfew is destroying many women’s livelihoods. Women workers are afraid of being arrested or worse if they have to go home from work after the curfew, so they are forced to abandon their jobs. Street vendors, most of them women, cannot work at all. We have learned that workers in the many export processing factories, also mostly women, are being made to go on marches supporting the de facto government.
Public servants who worked for the Zelaya government have lost their jobs and are being pursued by the de facto government. Even the national Minister for Women is in hiding from the de facto government’s judiciary, guilty of nothing more than having been appointed by Zelaya.
Women’s rights under threat
The coup also has particular implications for women because of the active involvement and support of the conservative Catholic Church and some evangelical Christian churches. Although Honduras has Latin America’s highest annual birth rate and a very high incidence of HIV and AIDS, the disproportionate influence of these churches makes women’s reproductive and health rights extremely limited and difficult and dangerous to access. In 2008 the National Congress, under pressure from the Church and conservative politicians, proposed a law prohibiting the emergency contraceptive pill (the ‘morning-after’ pill). It was vetoed by President Zelaya after lobbying from feminist organisations and discussions with the National Women’s Institute (INAM) and the Minister for Women. However, there are now fears that Roberto Micheletti’s de facto government effectively the same people who put forward the bill will resuscitate it and push it through.
Zelaya’s achievements for women modest but real
Zelaya’s ‘modest but real new domestic initiatives’ (Washington Office on Latin America, 3 July 09) included raising the minimum wage, abolishing fees for primary education, introducing school meals (thus ensuring that poor kids in school got at least one square meal a day), expanding the government’s programme of child immunisations, and bringing electricity to more rural and urban homes. While not directly aimed at promoting women’s rights, such measures have clearly been good for women. But these advances are all put at risk by the coup.
Not for Zelaya, but for the rule of law
Honduran women’s organisations do not deny that Zelaya’s government leaves plenty of room for change. They emphasise that they oppose the coup and the de facto government not because they totally approve of President Zelaya, but because the coup is illegal and undemocratic and the de facto government illegitimate. In the analysis of the ‘feminists in resistance’, the president’s abduction and deportation by the military represents a breakdown in the rule of law in which women are suffering as workers, family carers and victims of violence.
Says Gilda Rivera of the Honduran Centre for Women’s Rights (CDM), ‘We’re not followers of Mel [Zelaya], but we are against military coups, and … against the religious fundamentalists who have enthroned themselves in this de facto government and who have taken measures in the National Congress against the most fundamental rights of women.’
The Honduran constitution is weak on women’s rights, the conservative church has an undue influence on national policy-making, and no Honduran government has ever done much for women or gender equality. What feminists are demanding is change within the boundaries of the rule of law, in which all citizens, men and women, can participate fully and on equal terms.
On 7 July, Honduras’ first lady, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, left the mountain hideout where she had been since the day of the coup to lead a large rally against the coup outside the Pedagogic University in Tegucigalpa. She demanded: ‘How can there be peace where people cannot go about after a certain hour … if buses are held up … if the media are controlled … if demonstrations are repressed? How can there be peace at bayonet point? ... For the people not for those ladies swanning out of the beauty salons with security, with protection, but for the workers and peasants who struggle every day to make ends meet this is not peace.’
Further Information
The information provided in the Press Release is largely based on news received from Honduran women’s organisations by CAWN. Based in London, the Central America Women’s Network (CAWN) works in partnership with women’s organisations in Central America, including the Honduran Women’s Studies Centre (CEM-H). For the past three years they have been working on a joint project aimed at ending violence against women (VAW), which is endemic throughout the country. VAW takes different forms in Honduras, from psychological and physical violence to the extremes of femicide. According to CEM-H research (2006), the number of femicides (violent killings of women) rose from 11 in 2003 to 138 in 2004 and 171 in 2005. CDM recorded (2007) that 155 women were killed in 2006. CEM-H will be launching a new research report in September this year with up to date figures.
Even before the coup, on 28 June, CAWN received news that a young girl had been killed and her body placed in a box, tied up with a ribbon in a parody of gift-wrapping, and sent to the police. Although the Honduran media presented this as a gang killing, its timing is suggestive: the coup was already in preparation, and this femicide illustrates the ways in which the murder of women becomes a weapon and a message to the killers’ enemies.
In the light of these events CAWN, among other UK-based solidarity groups and non-governmental organisations, has sent a letter to the UK government, requesting its intervention at the diplomatic level to ensure the peaceful withdrawal of the soldiers and the safety and protection of civilians from any reprisals, and the freezing of all trade and aid from the UK to the government of Honduras until the crisis is resolved, among other political requests.
Contact: Katherine Ronderos
Women’s Rights Progamme Office, Central America Women’s Network
Telephone: +44 (0) 207 833 4174
e-mail: Katherine@cawn.org
Please visit our website : http://www.cawn.org
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| 13 Jul 2009 - 09:17 | Women's e-news
URL: www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=4058
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Spousal Rape Laws Continue to Evolve
By Caroline Johnston Polisi
WeNews commentator
Remnants of the "marital rape exemption" still exist in many states' laws, even though all 50 states now criminalize spousal rape. Plea bargains can also lead to more lenient sentencing. Caroline Johnston Polisi looks at how these laws have changed.
(WOMENSENEWS)--The scars on Regan Martin's wrists are a painful reminder of a past filled with violence and fear. While handcuffed behind her back, Martin's husband brutally beat and raped her, leaving her bloody, bruised and severely injured on the floor of their Crete, Ill., home.
The 2005 incident began, police reports say, after Martin refused to have sex with her husband John Samolis.
Sadly, Martin's story is not uncommon among American women. Studies indicate that between 15 and 25 percent of all married women have been victims of spousal rape and some scholars suggest that this type of rape is the most common form in our society.
Unfortunately, for survivors like Regan Martin, modern U.S. law still retains vestiges of a misogynistic past.
Creation of "Marital Rape Exemption"
Continues....
www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=4058
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| 13 Jul 2009 - 09:01 | Kathryn Laughon, PhD, RN
guardianhelp@virginia.edu
URL: clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00737035
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If you are taking care of children after the homicide of one of their parents by the other or an advocate who works with those families, you may be able to participate in our research study.
Nurses at the University of Virginia, School of Nursing are conducting a study to learn how to best provide information and support to guardians of children following the homicide of one parent by the other parent. Â People who participate in the study will talk to a researcher at a mutually convenient time for an hour or less. Â They will talk about the best way for them to learn about available information and support and the best ways to provide that support (such as in person, through written materials, through the internet, etc.) Â All the information obtained in this study will be confidential.
People who participate will receive $50.00 for each interview they complete.
For more information, contact Kathryn Laughon, Barbara Parker or Richard Steeves by toll free phone: Â 866-934-3386 or by email:
guardianhelp@virginia.edu
clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00737035
SBS Approval Number: # 2008-0130-00
Kathryn Laughon, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor
University of Virginia School of Nursing
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| 13 Jul 2009 - 08:35 | NewsObserver
URL: www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1604351. . . .
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Courts divert victims' money
Payments go to fines and fees, despite a 1998 law that puts victims first.
BY JOSEPH NEFF AND DAVID RAYNOR - Staff Writers
For 10 years, North Carolina's court system has improperly diverted millions of dollars meant to compensate crime victims and deposited the money in state and local treasuries.
In 1998, the General Assembly put crime victims first in line to receive any money paid by probationers, parolees and prisoners, money assessed by judges after the offenders were convicted.
But officials at the Administrative Office of the Courts in Raleigh interpreted the law to put crime victims third in line, behind fees for probation and community service. An incorrect computer setting compounded that error by putting many crime victims sixth in line, behind fines and city and county fees.
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If you're a victimIf you are a crime victim and have not been compensated, contact the clerk of court in your county.
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Court officials say that the court's antiquated computer systems, which date to the 1980s and earlier, make it virtually impossible to say how much money went to government accounts rather than victims. But The News & Observer examined 244,489 cases where restitution was ordered; in 80,148 cases, restitution was not paid in full, even though court officials collected $8.5 million in fees and fines that by law had a lower priority than crime victims.
This number is an undercount. It does not include cases closed early when the offender went to prison after making some payments. It does not include closed cases where a judge forgave unpaid costs before closing the case. And it does not include millions of closed cases that are archived and not accessible.
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www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1604351.html
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