Privilge checking.. and they shoulda done it, bitches

[badbabysitter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/21/afghan-women-jailed-abuse



The number of Afghan women jailed for fleeing forced and abusive marriages, and other "moral crimes", has soared since 2011, according to Human Rights Watch.

About 600 women and girls are in prison for offences including running away from their husband or family, even though fleeing abuse is not a crime under Afghan law. Eighteen months ago, 400 women were being held for such "crimes", the rights group said, quoting figures from the ministry of interior, which runs the country's jails.

The report was released days after Afghanistan's parliament failed to pass a landmark law protecting women from violence, because religious conservatives rejected key provisions, including a minimum marriage age of 16 for girls.

There are growing concerns that hard-won rights for women are under threat as western troops head home, taking with them much of the scrutiny and some of the funds that have helped support progress since the fall of the Taliban over a decade ago.

More than half of Afghanistan's female prisoners are in jail for "moral crimes", and their numbers are rising faster than the overall numbers of women in detention, despite a shaky legal basis for many of their sentences.

Prisoners interviewed by HRW said the women had fled their homes in a bid to escape abuse, including underage marriage, beatings, stabbings, burnings and forced prostitution. Often they were subjected to unscientific virginity tests after their arrest, which the report said amounted to a cruel and degrading form of sexual assault.

Running away is not illegal under the Afghan criminal code, but the country's supreme court has ordered the prosecution of women who flee their families. Senior government officials have confirmed it is not a crime but those views have not translated into policy, HRW said, calling on the president to free all women jailed for leaving home.

Rape victims are also imprisoned for "forced adultery" because sex outside marriage is a crime in Afghanistan, and judges and prosecutors ignor questions of consent.

In all but a handful of the cases there was no investigation of the abuse that prompted the women to flee, while prosecution or punishment were even rarer.

"Twelve years after Taliban rule, women are still imprisoned for being victims of forced marriage, domestic violence, and rape," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. "The Afghan government needs to get tough on abusers of women, and stop blaming women who are crime victims."

One bright spot is a modest increase in the number of shelters for abused women since 2011, but there still are none in conservative southern Afghanistan, and all of the existing safe houses are dependent on foreign funds.

The Afghan government is ambivalent at best about the shelters, which the justice minister denounced as little more than brothels, and has shown no sign it is willing to pay for them.

"Afghanistan's donors have a crucial role to play in supporting shelters that are literally life-saving for many women," Adams said. "They should not only help ensure the survival of the shelters that exist, but support expansion of the shelter system including in southern Afghanistan."

A landmark law for the elimination of violence against women, enacted by presidential decree in 2009 but never ratified by parliament, was put to a vote last week by women's rights advocates who hoped to strengthen it with a popular debate ahead of a change of leadership next year.

The law bans more than 20 forms of violence against women, including child marriage, forced marriage, buying and selling women for marriage, giving away women to settle disputes and forced self-immolation.

But after bitter debates over issues such as enforcing a minimum marriage age, which religious conservatives said was un-Islamic, the legislation was shelved indefinitely. The United Nations called on the government to ensure that this "critical" law was implemented.

 

[badbabysitter]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Afghan-lawmakers-block-law-on-women-s-rights-4527658.php

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation on Saturday aimed at strengthening provisions for women's freedoms, arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles and encourage disobedience.

The fierce opposition highlights how tenuous women's rights remain a dozen years after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime, whose strict interpretation of Islam once kept Afghan women virtual prisoners in their homes.

Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a conservative lawmaker for Herat province, said the legislation was withdrawn shortly after being introduced in parliament because of an uproar by religious parties who said parts of the law are un-Islamic.

"Whatever is against Islamic law, we don't even need to speak about it," Shaheedzada said.

The Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women has been in effect since 2009, but only by presidential decree. It is being brought before parliament now because lawmaker Fawzia Kofi, a women's rights activist, wants to cement it with a parliamentary vote to prevent its potential reversal by any future president who might be tempted to repeal it to satisfy hard-line religious parties.

The law criminalizes, among other things, child marriage and forced marriage, and bans "baad," the traditional practice of exchanging girls and women to settle disputes. It makes domestic violence a crime punishable by up to three years in prison and specifies that rape victims should not face criminal charges for fornication or adultery.

Kofi, who plans to run for president in next year's elections, said she was disappointed because among those who oppose upgrading the law from presidential decree to legislation passed by parliament are women.

Afghanistan's parliament has more than 60 female lawmakers, mostly due to constitutional provisions reserving certain seats for women.

There has been spotty enforcement of the law as it stands. A United Nations analysis in late 2011 found only a small percentage of reported crimes against women were pursued by the Afghan government. Between March 2010 and March 2011 — the first full Afghan year the decree was in effect — prosecutors filed criminal charges in only 155 cases, or 7 percent of the total number of crimes reported.

The child marriage ban and the idea of protecting female rape victims from prosecution were particularly heated subjects in Saturday's parliamentary debate, said Nasirullah Sadiqizada Neli, a conservative lawmaker from Daykundi province.

Neli suggested that removing the custom — common in Afghanistan — of prosecuting raped women for adultery would lead to social chaos, with women freely engaging in extramarital sex safe in the knowledge they could claim rape if caught.

Another lawmaker, Mandavi Abdul Rahmani of Barlkh province, also opposed the law's rape provision.

"Adultery itself is a crime in Islam, whether it is by force or not," Rahmani said.

He said the Quran also makes clear that a husband has a right to beat a disobedient wife as a last resort, as long as she is not permanently harmed. "But in this law," he said, "It says if a man beats his wife at all, he should be jailed for three months to three years."

Lawmaker Shaheedzada also claimed that the law might encourage disobedience among girls and women, saying it reflected Western values not applicable in Afghanistan.

"Even now in Afghanistan, women are running from their husbands. Girls are running from home," Shaheedzada said. "Such laws give them these ideas."

More freedoms for women are one of the most visible — and symbolic — changes in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime. While in power, the Taliban imposed a strict interpretation of Islam that put severe curbs on the freedom of women.

For five years, the regime banned women from working and going to school, or even leaving home without a male relative. In public, all women were forced wear a head-to-toe burqa, which covers even the face with a mesh panel. Violators were publicly flogged or executed.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, women's freedoms have improved vastly, but Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative culture, especially in rural areas.

Saturday's failure of the legislation in parliament reflected the power of religious parties but changed little on the ground, since the decree is still the law of the land, however loosely enforced. Kofi said the parliament decided to send the legislation to committee, and it could come to a vote again later this year.

"We will work on this law," she said. "We will bring it back."

Some activists, however, worry about potential changes to the law. Bringing the legislation before parliament also opened it up to being amended, leaving the possibility that conservatives will seek to weaken it by stripping out provisions they dislike — or even vote to repeal it.

"There's a real risk this has opened a Pandora's box, that this may have galvanized opposition to this decree by people who in principle oppose greater rights for women," said Heather Barr, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

That's true for lawmaker Rahmani, who said President Hamid Karzai should never have issued the decree and wants it changed, if not repealed.

"We cannot have an Islamic country with basically Western laws," he said.

 

[badbabysitter]

Abortion is murder.. killing the mother is not apparently

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/15/el_...ourt_to_grant_life_saving_abortion/singleton/


A critically ill and pregnant 22-year-old woman in El Salvador testified before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to grant her a life-saving abortion.

As Salon has previously reported, the woman, identified only as Beatriz, is 23 weeks pregnant with an anencephalic, non-viable fetus. Beatriz’s doctors have testified that complications related to her lupus, hypertension and kidney disease could kill her if the pregnancy is not terminated; but because abortion is illegal under all circumstances in El Salvador, Beatriz, and her doctors, could go to prison if she receives the life-saving medical procedure.

In a statement last month, Beatriz pleaded with El Salvador’s president Mauricio Funes Cartagena to intervene in the case, saying: “This baby inside me cannot survive. I am ill. I want to live.” On Wednesday, she told the court the same.

In addition to Beatriz’s personal appeals, reproductive rights groups like Agrupación Ciudadana Por la Despenalización Del Aborto, the country’s Minister of Health Maria Isabel Rodriguez and international human rights organizations like Amnesty International have petitioned the court to act.

Last month, Rodriguez wrote a letter asking the court to intervene before Beatriz’s kidney function further deteriorates, calling Beatriz’s condition a serious maternal illness and asking the court to approve her “urgent medical abortion.

 

[badbabysitter]

Want to rape a child?... just marry her!!!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...tim_n_3321086.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=Canada


In an unfortunate turn of events in a Malaysian rape case, a 40-year-old man accused of rape has married the teenage victim.

Riduan Masmud was charged with raping a 13-year-old girl last February. On Monday, his counsel Loretto Padua revealed to the court that Masmud is now married to the young girl he was accused of assaulting. As The Daily Express notes, Padua had previously told the court that Masmud was in the process of seeking a lawful marriage to the teen in Syariah Court -- a separate court system that has jurisdiction over matters pertaining to Islamic law.

While the prosecution must make a decision by June 6 on whether to pursue the statutory rape charge in light of the news, on Wednesday, Malaysian Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail vowed to press on in the case, Ntv7 News reports.

Malaysia's Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development is also advocating that Masmud be prosecuted. Minister Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim told Bernama, Malaysia's national news agency, the ministry is concerned that Masmud's action may set an example by providing an escape route in cases of statutory rape.

"In order to protect public interest and prevent such incidents, the Ministry urges that the man be charged under Section 376 of the Penal Code in the Sessions Court or Section 80 of the Sabah Syariah Offences Enactment 1995 in the Syariah Court for having sex outside of marriage," she told the news agency.

The rape, which allegedly took place in a parked car in Sabah around 10 a.m. on Feb. 18, was not brought to light until the 13-year-old's aunt filed a police report. Masmud, who has four children with his first wife, was charged with the crime 10 days later; however the teen later withdrew her report of rape on April 18, The Star reports.

Masmud, for his part, is defending the marriage. Outside the courtroom Monday, he explained to reporters that the marriage was consensual.

"There are many cases of men marrying underage girls. I do not see why my case should be any different," the man said, according to The Star.

However, some have expressed quite a different view of the marriage.

Ruth Liew, governor of the Malaysian Child Resource Institute, is appalled at Masmud's explanation.

"She is still a child and comes from an impoverished family," she told The Sun. "His statement that many other men are marrying underage girls begs the question of whether something is right just because everyone's doing it."

The Sabah Single Mothers Organization also condemned the action.

"This is despicable! This man has given a platform for other men to act (rape) and then get away with it (marry the victim)," President Norhanida Anol told Bernama.

Mariati Robert, head of the women and girls subcommittee at the Sabah Law Association, explained to Malaysiakini TV the young men in Malaysia "are quite aware that they should never have a sexual relationship with girls under 16," However, she advises that more education is needed.

"Out of this case we need to increase public awareness on the situation, on the law as it is, so there will be more respect," she said, adding "so people don't have relationships with underage girls."

 

[LadyVer]

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/15/el_...ourt_to_grant_life_saving_abortion/singleton/


A critically ill and pregnant 22-year-old woman in El Salvador testified before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to grant her a life-saving abortion.

As Salon has previously reported, the woman, identified only as Beatriz, is 23 weeks pregnant with an anencephalic, non-viable fetus. Beatriz’s doctors have testified that complications related to her lupus, hypertension and kidney disease could kill her if the pregnancy is not terminated; but because abortion is illegal under all circumstances in El Salvador, Beatriz, and her doctors, could go to prison if she receives the life-saving medical procedure.

In a statement last month, Beatriz pleaded with El Salvador’s president Mauricio Funes Cartagena to intervene in the case, saying: “This baby inside me cannot survive. I am ill. I want to live.” On Wednesday, she told the court the same.

In addition to Beatriz’s personal appeals, reproductive rights groups like Agrupación Ciudadana Por la Despenalización Del Aborto, the country’s Minister of Health Maria Isabel Rodriguez and international human rights organizations like Amnesty International have petitioned the court to act.

Last month, Rodriguez wrote a letter asking the court to intervene before Beatriz’s kidney function further deteriorates, calling Beatriz’s condition a serious maternal illness and asking the court to approve her “urgent medical abortion.

Irony at its best.

 

[LiFeNdEaTh]

wow....

 

[badbabysitter]

drug and gangraped for 3 days... naturally, it's her fault

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...tan_n_3333542.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=Canada

Kainat Soomro was 13 when she said men from her village kidnapped her on her way back from school. She says they drugged her, brutally gang-raped her and kept her in captivity for three days until she finally managed to escape. Back in the village, the men denied her story. The town's tribal elders declared Kainat "outlawed" for having sex outside marriage and tried to convince the girl's family to kill her themselves. Kainat's brother and father refused, however, and the family started a long battle in Pakistan's courts.

Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann followed Kainat and the men she accused for several years, capturing the unfolding of the legal battles and the daily struggles of the Soomro family in the PBS/Frontline documentary, "Outlawed in Pakistan." Through the lens of Kainat's life, the filmmakers shed light on women's lives in traditional Pakistani communities and the changing narrative on women's rights in the country.

Roughly 46 percent of all female murders in Pakistan in 2009 were in the name of "honor," Schellman and Nosheen note in an article for The Atlantic. More than 600 of these "honor killings" were reported by the press, though the actual number is likely much higher.

"In a country where you don't have a system set up to collect evidence in a timely fashion when someone says, 'I've been raped,' what does that case look like in the courts?" Schellmann says in a press release. "It ends up just being the woman's word against the man's."

 

[badbabysitter]

Ah Italia... male murders down, female murders up... damn privilege

ROME -- Violence against women in Italy has been thrust into the spotlight with a raft of headline-grabbing murders of women by their lovers – a trend the U.N. has flagged as a particular problem in a country where gender stereotypes are "deeply rooted" and where a third of all women face physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes.

On Tuesday, Italy's lower chamber of parliament ratified a European anti-domestic violence convention on the same day that the latest victim was buried: a 15-year-old girl beaten, stabbed 20 times and burned alive, allegedly by her boyfriend.

The Council of Europe treaty on preventing and combatting violence against women now goes to the Italian Senate, where its passage is expected. The 2011 treaty creates a legal framework to prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women.

The unanimous vote occurred in Rome. In the southern "toe" of boot-shaped Italy, funeral services were held Tuesday for Fabiana Luzzi, who died Friday in the southern town of Corigliano Calabro. Italian news reports cited prosecutor Maria Vallefuoco as saying her boyfriend, identified only as Davide because he is a minor, was in custody and had confessed.

Details of the crime turned even more gruesome after news reports citing the coroner and prosecutors said Luzzi bled for two hours and was very much alive before her boyfriend returned with a tank of gas. She apparently tried unsuccessfully to fight him off when he doused her with fuel and set her afire.

The boyfriend's lawyer, Giovanni Zagarese, has said he would seek a psychiatric evaluation if the judge doesn't order one, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

"I feel the need to ask forgiveness for all the women killed by the hands of those who abuse the word `love,'" Italy's equal opportunities minister, Josefa Idem, said as she attended Luzzi's funeral.

Several lawmakers cited Luzzi's violent death in remarks before the treaty vote and the chamber president, Laura Boldrini, hailed the treaty as an important step forward for Italy. Boldrini said Italy also needed a separate law to finance specific intervention measures.

Italy has several laws that should prevent such crimes and ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted.

But last year, the U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, said the implementation of Italy's laws are often stymied by their fragmented nature, inadequate sanctions, lack of redress for victims and lengthy trials that often end with cases being thrown out due to the statute of limitations.

"These factors contribute to the silencing and invisibility surrounding violence against women, its causes and consequences," she wrote in her report.

Since the 1990s, as homicides by men against men fell in Italy, the number of women murdered by men has increased: In 2010, the figure stood at 127, the U.N. report said. Other studies cite higher figures, and note that many cases of domestic violence go unreported to begin with.

Manjoo said 78 percent of all violence against women in Italy is domestic in nature, and that 31.9 percent of Italian women face physical or sexual violence during their lifetimes. The U.N. envoy noted that gender stereotypes are "deeply rooted" in Italy, where women are underrepresented in public and private senior management positions.

"Women carry a heavy burden in terms of household care, while the contribution of men thereto is amongst the lowest in the world," Manjoo said.

She cited studies that found that 53 percent of women appearing on television in Italy didn't speak, while 46 percent of them "were associated with issues such as sex, fashion and beauty, and only 2 percent issues of social commitment and professionalism."

 

[badbabysitter]

intersting recruitment tactic

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Court-told-recruiter-became-a-predator-4174226.php

A woman testified Tuesday that a Houston-area Air Force recruiter doggedly pursued her in 2011, when she was a 17-year-old high school senior, sending her lewd text messages and naked photos of himself.

Now in the Navy, she accused Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez, 34, of trying to coax her into a sexual relationship and later told her not to talk with people about it.

“'If anyone found out, you do realize that both of us would get into trouble?'” the woman, identified as Female 15, recalled him saying.

An Air Force investigation began after her mother found the text messages and photos.

Agents tracked down 18 women who claim Rodriguez, a 13-year Air Force veteran, tried to initiate sexual relationships with them.

Eight witnesses took the stand Tuesday in a Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland courtroom for a hearing that could lead to court-martial.

The hearing continues today.

Prosecutors have lodged six charges and 35 specifications of misconduct against Rodriguez, who's accused of adultery, forcible sodomy and rape.

He could receive a life sentence if convicted of the rape charge.

Rodriguez is thought to have had sex with four women, one of them an applicant and another on active duty while assigned to the Lake Jackson recruiting office south of Houston since August 2008.

The active-duty airman, identified as Female 1, said Rodriguez and another recruiter began asking sexual questions on her second day on the job.

The second recruiter has since left the Air Force.

“I was very innocent and naïve, if you would. I didn't know how people treated other people,” she said, when asked how she responded. “I had never been in a situation like that before.”

Rodriguez, whose recruiting squadron is based in San Antonio, never sent emails or messages to her. But he allegedly pursued relationships with 14 other women via email or text messaging — in three cases sending graphic naked photos of his genitals.

At least one of the women, Female 15, was 17 and in high school at the time. Military law says 16 is the age of consent for sex, said Lt. Col. Mark Hoover, an Air Force's training command lawyer.

The Navy enlistee said she opted not to join the Air Force because of her experience. Most of the women listed as victims did not join the Air Force, but a few were recruit applicants. Two were recruiter's assistants, one of whom said she was raped.

Recruiting service spokeswoman Christa D'Andrea said it's not clear if those who decided not to join did so because of their experience with Rodriguez.

Female 15 said Rodriguez was professional during a screening session, but things turned sexual later.

They never met, but the woman said Rodriguez would text, call and send Yahoo instant messages to her phone. They became frequent, and graphic.

In one exchange, she said via teleconference at the hearing, Rodriguez talked of having sex with her in his office. She said the conversations also led her to feel as if she should not tell anyone.

“It became more, like, predatory,” she testified.

Air Force Special Agent Mark Ryan said his investigation found numerous women who received text messages and emails from Rodriguez.

He said records show Rodriguez made 934 phone calls or text messages to Female 15 from September to October 2011on his government cell phone, and that she logged 515 phone calls and text messages on her phone.

There also were exchanges on a Yahoo instant messaging service. Her mother discovered photos of her daughter on the phone, one with her wearing a bra without a shirt, and later found images of Rodriguez in boxer shorts.

The mother said she found a photo of him naked after one of Rodriguez's supervisors asked her to send him all the emails the recruiter sent. “This was very disturbing,” she said of the image.

A Marine recruiter in Lake Jackson, Sgt. Richard Lecompte, said Rodriguez came to his office in November 2011 and asked him to create an email from a new account purportedly from the girl's parents, saying they wouldn't press charges.

“I told him I didn't want anything to do with the situation,” Lecompte said, adding that he was ordered to file a report about the incident.

 

[badbabysitter]

i dont know hat is worse,,, the church, the exhusband , or the community

http://www.alternet.org/gender/cath....1116459.IwgdtP&rd=1&src=newsletter854784&t=5

A San Diego Catholic school fired a teacher and domestic violence survivor due to her ex-husband’s “threatening and menacing behavior,” KNSD-TV reports.

Second-grade teacher Carie Charlesworth said she received notice of her termination after an incident in which her abusive ex-husband followed her to Holy Trinity School, where she worked. Charlesworth had been teaching in the district for 14 years.

"They’ve taken away my ability to care for my kids,” she told KNSD. “It’s not like I can go out and find a teaching job anywhere.”

Charlesworth went on leave after in incident in January that forced her to call the police on her husband three separate times. As KNSD reports, she went to Holy Trinity the next day to warn the principle “to be on the lookout for her ex-husband,” who “has a trail of restraining orders and 911 calls.”

Sure enough, Charlesworth’s abuser showed up at the school’s parking lot, sending it into lockdown. The next day, she received a letter informing her that she and her children were put on “indefinite leave.” And three months later, the teacher received a letter from Holy Trinity informing her that the school “simply cannot allow” her to return to work.

It didn’t matter that Charlesworth’s ex-husband is currently behind bars for his crimes, as the school has “no way of knowing how long or short a time he will actually serve.”

Sadly, Charlesworth’s story is part of a larger pattern of employees losing their jobs after incidents of domestic violence. As KNSD reports, a 2011 study shows that “Nearly 40 percent of survivors in California reported being fired or feared termination because of domestic violence.”

Charlesworth is telling her story to raise awareness of this problem, saying: “I mean that’s why women of domestic violence don’t come forward, because they’re afraid of the way people are going to see them, view them, perceive them, treat them.”