Violence Against Women - What we in the US take for granted

[girl_dee]

i wish i had not read that.

[Kobi]

NEW DELHI (AP) — A child disappears. Police are called. Nothing happens.

Child rights activists say the rape last week of a 5-year-old girl is just the latest case in which Indian police failed to take urgent action on a report of a missing child.

More than 90,000 children go missing in India each year; more than 34,000 are never found. Some parents say they lost crucial time because police wrongly dismissed their missing children as runaways, refused to file reports or treated the cases as nuisances.

Formal police complaints were registered in only one-sixth of missing child cases in 2011, said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer with Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement. He said police resist registering cases because they want to keep crime figures low, and that parents are often too poor to bribe them to reconsider.

Ribhu said the first few hours after a child goes missing are the most crucial. "The police can cordon off nearby areas, issue alerts at railway and bus stations, and step up vigilance to catch the kidnappers," he said.

Activists say delays let traffickers move children to neighboring states, where the police don't have jurisdiction. There is no national database of missing children that state police can reference.

Police have insisted that most of missing children are runways fleeing grinding poverty.

"It's easy enough to blame the police for not finding the children. Some of the parents do not even possess a photograph of the child. Or they will come up with a years-old picture. It becomes difficult when there's not even a photograph to work with," Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said last month when asked about complaints on police inaction in investigating case of missing children.

Many cases involved poor migrant construction workers who move from site to site around the city, Bhagat said.

India's Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath told Parliament last month that the problem of missing children had assumed "alarming" proportions. The National Crime Records Bureau reported that 34,406 missing children were never found in 2011, up from 18,166 in 2009.

Activists say some children are trafficked and forced to beg on the streets. Some work on farms or factories as forced labor and others have their organs harvested and sold. The activists say young girls are pushed into the sex trade or sold for marriage.

"The government is just not ready to confront the issue of trafficking or missing children. And this gets reflected in the apathy of the police in dealing with cases of missing children," said Ribhu, the lawyer.

In 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation said at least 815 criminal gangs were kidnapping children for begging, prostitution or ransom.

The Save the Childhood Movement said police have not cracked a single one of those syndicates.

Shantha Sinha, who heads the government's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, acknowledged that much remained to be done to make police take cases of missing children seriously.

http://news.yahoo.com/indian-girls-r...103156990.html

[Kobi]

* Trigger Warning*

5-year-old girl has died after being raped in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, an official said Tuesday, in the latest in a series of brutal attacks that have sparked outrage in the country.

The girl suffered cardiac arrest and died late Monday at a hospital in Nagpur city in neighbouring Maharashtra state where she was being treated for injuries from the April 18 assault, said Bharat Yadav, collector for Seoni district, where the attack occurred.

Two men have been arrested in connection with the attack, he said.

The girl was lured by one of the men to a farm, where she was then raped by the other man, who was a friend of her parents, Yadav said. The parents, poor construction workers, were at work when the attack occurred, he said.

Ravi Manadiar, an administrator at the hospital, said the girl suffered a brain injury when the men tried to smother her cries and was in a coma from April 20 until she died.

In Nagpur, the mother of the girl was inconsolable.

“The court should give them the strictest punishment ever,” she sobbed Tuesday.

“These men should be burned alive so that the whole world will see how such criminals ought to be punished,” she said, wiping her tears with the corner of her sari.

About 40 supporters of the opposition Congress party held a rally in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, to protest what they said was a rise in violence against women in the state.

They burned an effigy of the state’s top elected official, Chief Minister Shivraj SIngh Chouhan, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Earlier this month, another 5-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped and tortured by two men who then abandoned her in a locked room in New Delhi. She is still recovering at a hospital in the city.

Police refused to register a case when the girl’s parents reported that their daughter was missing. Hundreds of people protested outside police headquarters in New Delhi for three days, angry over allegations of police inaction and indifference to the parents’ complaints.

Indian media have begun to report sexual assaults more aggressively since the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December. That attack triggered outrage across India about the treatment of women in the country, and spurred the government to pass tougher laws for crimes against women, including the death penalty for repeat offenders or for rapes that lead to the victim’s death.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle11628161/

[Kobi]

NEW DELHI (AP) — The phones were ringing nonstop in the tiny, windowless office in downtown New Delhi, with urgent appeals from desperate women.

Indian Rape Law Offers Desperate Last Resort The Wall Street Journal
Indian magazine editor arrested on sexual assault charges Reuters

One caller, speaking in whispers, said her husband beat her regularly because she failed to bring in enough dowry. Another woman said her teenage daughter was being stalked by a neighbor and needed legal advice.

Established in the wake of last year's gang rape and murder of a young New Delhi woman, the government hotline is part of a wave of change since the case forced the country to confront its appalling treatment of women.

The victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was heading home with a male friend after an evening showing of the movie "Life of Pi" when six men lured them onto a private bus. With no one else in sight, they beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries.

The pair were dumped naked on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later.

Indian media named her "Nirbhaya," or "fearless," as rape victims cannot be identified under Indian law. She became a rallying cry for tens of thousands protesting the treatment of women.

New laws have made stalking, voyeurism and sexual harassment a crime. There is now a fast-track court for rape cases. In some ways, the case cracked a cultural taboo surrounding discussion of sexual violence in a country where rape is often viewed as a woman's personal shame to bear.

But for so many women in India's urban centers like New Delhi and Mumbai, the new laws have not made the streets any safer. And in such a conservative country with patriarchal traditions, it will take more than a year to erode generations of devastating sexism.

"Out on the streets, I find men staring at me, passing lewd comments," said Barnali Barman, a 23-year-old business executive in New Delhi. "I find people following me as I get down from the train and walk to my office."

Nirbhaya's father told The Associated Press he takes comfort in the changes his daughter's suffering have brought.

But, he said, "not a day passes when we don't shed tears."

"Our tears are not for her death, but for what she suffered," he said in an interview from the family's three-room apartment in the outer suburbs of New Delhi.

"We just can't forget how she suffered at the hands of these men," he added, his voice thickening. On the wall hung a faded piece of cloth — an award for bravery given posthumously to his daughter.

His wife, a pale shadow, backs out of the room at any mention of her daughter.

The assailants were tried relatively quickly in a country where sexual assault cases often languish for years. Four defendants were sentenced to death. Another hanged himself in prison, though his family insists he was killed. And an 18-year-old who was a juvenile at the time of the attack was sentenced to three years in a reform home.

In India, the arrival of a daughter is a tragic event in many families. Illegal sex-selective abortions over decades have left the country with a ratio of 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys. Girls get less medical care and less education.

Still, in the last two decades as the Indian economy boomed, rising education levels and inflation have led to larger numbers of women joining the work force. But the deep-rooted social attitudes toward women have remained largely unchanged.

The result is that women's complaints of rape and sexual abuse remain drastically underreported. Families often do not make a police complaint to avoid the stigma that befalls the victim and her family.

"The criminals know that the Indian police and courts will take 10 years or more to prosecute them," said Tanpreet Singh, a 26-year-old New Delhi businessman. "The system is corrupt and many succeed in bribing their way out."

For all the attention given to Nirbhaya's case, daily indignities and abuse continue unabated for many women, particularly the poor.

"Indian society has to change its mindset about women," said Chaitali, a field worker with Jagori, a women's rights group, who goes by one name. "That is something that will take more than a year. If we are lucky it will take a couple of generations."

The women's hotline aims to speed things up. On a recent evening, six women wearing headsets sat at computer terminals, speaking in gentle tones to agitated callers.

"Most of the calls are from women who are suffering some kind of abuse — sexual harassment, domestic violence, stalking, or obscene phone calls," said Khadijah Faruqui, a veteran women's rights activist who heads the helpline project.

In cases of domestic violence, or where there is imminent danger to the caller's life, the helpline informs the police, or women's groups nearby, so that they can reach the scene and intervene. The helpline also offers legal advice and follow-up calls.

In a little less than a year, the helpline has handled more than half a million distress calls from women in trouble, Faruqui said.

Activists say one outcome of the public debate is that women are coming forward to register complaints against sexual abuse.

There has been a surge in the number of rapes being reported: Between January and October this year, there have been 1,330 rapes reported in Delhi and its suburbs, compared with the 706 for the whole of 2012, according to government figures.

Several recent, high-profile cases also suggest women feel more comfortable going public with reports of sexual assaults — an important breakthrough in a country where men feel emboldened to commit crimes because they know women face the stigma.

Last month, the high-profile editor of an Indian magazine known for exposing abuses of power was arrested after a young female colleague accused him of sexually assaulting her in a hotel elevator during a conference.

The allegations against Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal have touched a nerve in part because he is the face of a publication that has pushed Indian society to vanquish corruption and confront the scourge of sexual violence.

Women's rights also took on unprecedented significance in India's state elections last week, with the three main parties adopting a "womanifesto" — a list of six priority actions to protect the freedom and safety of women in the capital.

"Today, every political party is promising safety and security as the first commitment to women in the country," said Ranjana Kumari, a women's rights activist with New Delhi's Centre for Social Research. "This was something which they never thought was necessary."

Kumari said there are glimmers of hope as women become aware that they no longer have to put up with sexual harassment.

"Instead of a fearful silence," she said, "there is an openness without the inhibitions of social shame."

___
http://news.yahoo.com/since-delhi-ra...074424448.html

[RockOn]

This has bothered me ever since I read it on the news about 3 months ago.
I must confess, I did not check to see if someone else had already posted
about this little girl's death. A mere child.

I cannot say on this forum how I truly feel in detail about this and what needs to be done.

Breaks my heart to think of what happened to this girl child. Takes a sick freak of a man to do something this horrible to an innocent. And no one could ever convince me he did not know he was killing her - not in a million years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SANAA (Reuters) - An eight-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal bleeding on her wedding night after marrying a man five times her age, a social activist and two local residents said, in a case that has caused an outcry in the media and revived debate about child brides.

Arwa Othman, head of Yemen House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner, said the girl, identified only as Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old man late last week in the town of Meedi in Hajjah province in northwestern Yemen.

"On the wedding night and after intercourse, she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death," Othman told Reuters. "They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn't save her life."

Othman said authorities had not taken any action against the girl's family or her husband.

A local security official in the provincial town of Haradh denied any such incident had taken place. He did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

But two Meedi residents contacted by Reuters confirmed the incident and said that local tribal chiefs had tried to cover up the incident when news first broke, warning a local journalist against covering the story.

Many poor families in Yemen marry off young daughters to save on the costs of bringing up a child and earn extra money from the dowry given to the girl.

A U.N. report released in January revealed the extent of the country's poverty, saying that 10.5 million of Yemen's 24 million people lacked sufficient food supplies, and 13 million had no access to safe water and basic sanitation.

Human Rights Watch urged Yemen's government in December 2011 to ban marriages of girls under the age of 18, warning it deprived child brides of education and harmed their health.

Quoting United Nations and government data, HRW said nearly 14 percent of Yemeni girls were married before the age of 15 and 52 percent before the age of 18. The group said many Yemeni child brides-to-be are kept from school when they reach puberty.

Discussions on the issue were shelved by political turmoil following protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 that led to his ouster.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; editing by Mike Collett-Whi

[*Anya*]

Controversial Morocco rape law axed.

Last updated Jan 23, 2014, 5:37 AM PST

BBC NEWS

Violence against women and gender inequality are the subjects of frequent demonstrations in Rabat.

The parliament of Morocco has unanimously amended an article of the penal code that allowed rapists of underage girls to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims.

The move follows intensive lobbying by activists for better protection of young rape victims. The amendment has been welcomed by rights groups.

Article 475 of the penal code generated unprecedented public criticism.

It was first proposed by Morocco's Islamist-led government a year ago.

But the issue came to public prominence in 2012 when 16-year-old Amina Filali killed herself after being forced to marry her rapist.

She accused Moustapha Fellak, who at the time was about 25, of physical abuse after they married, which he denies. After seven months of marriage, Ms Filali swallowed rat poison.

The case shocked many people in Morocco, received extensive media coverage and sparked protests in the capital Rabat and other cities.

Article 475 provides for a prison term of one to five years for anyone who "abducts or deceives" a minor "without violence, threat or fraud, or attempts to do so".

But the second clause of the article specifies that when the victim marries the perpetrator, "he can no longer be prosecuted except by persons empowered to demand the annulment of the marriage and then only after the annulment has been proclaimed".

This effectively prevents prosecutors from independently pursuing rape charges.

In conservative rural parts of Morocco, an unmarried girl or woman who has lost her virginity - even through rape - is considered to have dishonoured her family and no longer suitable for marriage. Some families believe that marrying the rapist addresses these problems.

While welcoming the move, rights groups say that much still needs to be done to promote gender equality, protect women and outlaw child marriage in the North African country.

"It's a very important step. But it's not enough," Fatima Maghnaoui, who heads a group supporting women victims of violence, told the AFP news agency.

"We are campaigning for a complete overhaul of the penal code for women."

BBC © 2014

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

"The television show “Democracy Now” had a heartbreaking segment Friday about a teenager whose school accused her of lewd conduct” and sent her to disciplinary school after she reported her rape."


http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ra...n-texas-2014-1


The hatred and violence against girls and women each and every day will never stop with only women and a handful of men giving a damn.

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

LINCOLN — She made an agonizing decision two years ago to give birth to a child who was conceived during a rape.

Today, the 20-year-old Norfolk, Neb., woman has a beautiful toddler, but a different sort of agony. Recently a judge granted child visitation rights to the man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her.

http://www.omaha.com/article/2014012...hts-restricted

And the hits just keep on coming...

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Happy_Go_Lucky

LINCOLN — She made an agonizing decision two years ago to give birth to a child who was conceived during a rape.

Today, the 20-year-old Norfolk, Neb., woman has a beautiful toddler, but a different sort of agony. Recently a judge granted child visitation rights to the man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her.

http://www.omaha.com/article/2014012...hts-restricted

And the hits just keep on coming...

[Sweet Bliss]

Originally Posted by Kobi

This is sickening.

Which 31 states?

[Words]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

In conservative rural parts of Morocco, an unmarried girl or woman who has lost her virginity - even through rape - is considered to have dishonoured her family and no longer suitable for marriage. Some families believe that marrying the rapist addresses these problems.

Just to be clear...

In Islamic societies, it is still custom for girls/women to remain virgins until they marry and for a girl who is no longer a virgin to be considered 'spoilt goods'. Although most families would indeed feel a sense of shame if one of their females were raped, PART of the reason for their agreeing to her marrying her rapist would be to ensure that she was taken care of in the future. I know it sounds heartless, but you have to understand that even today, in most Islamic societies it is the men who take care of the women and that with no social welfare system to turn to, a girl is reliant first on her father, brothers (if no father is present), and then husband for her every need. Add to that the fact that many rape cases involve a member of the extended family as opposed to an absolute stranger, then I can understand, kind of, why families often view marriage between the victim and the rapist as the only viable solution. (This view is based on over 20 years living amongst Muslims - both liberal and conservative - in the Middle East.)

Words

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Sweet Bliss

This is sickening.

Which 31 states?

I like knowing from whence things came. The above graphic is from a 2012 CNN story where Shauna Prewitt, a Chicago lawyer responded to Todd Akins "legitimate rape rarely results in pregnancy" comments with the story of her own rape which did result in pregnancy.

In an article in The Georgetown Law Journal in 2010, entitled "Giving Birth To A Rapists Child, A Discussion And Analysis Of The Limited Legal Protections Afforded To Women Who Become Mothers Through Rape", Prewitt explains how states have hurried to enact laws to cover the termination of a rapists legal rights in order to enable adoption, but have fallen woefully short when it comes to aid for raped women who choose to raise their raped conceived children.

Fascinating reading if you are well versed in legalese.

In 2012, the 19 states that bar rapists from custodial and visitation rights are: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Since then, a number of states have been attempting (but I cant find actual success) to enact such provisions such as Arkansas, Colorado, and Florida.

I found a really cool site from the Colorado government called "A State By State Review Of the Parental Rights Of Fathers Who Conceive A Child By Rape." Getting past the odd title, I like it because it has a chart (Kobi likes charts) of all the states, the ones with statutes and what the statutes are for i.e. adoption, custody, termination of parental rights, visitation, criminal. It also shows if conviction is required, and the burden of proof i.e. clear and convincing evidence, preponderance of evidence, beyond reasonable doubt.

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite...&ssbinary=true

[Sweet Bliss]

Thank you for all the background Kobi!

We all need to get back to our radical change roots and take back our personal power and decision making rights over our lives, bodies, children, families etc.

This is making me nauseous.

What can I do today Kobi, to create a change in my state?

[silkepus]

I saw this on tumblr, but it can't be true. Does anyone know if it is? Its almost to infuriating to consider.

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by silkepus

I saw this on tumblr, but it can't be true. Does anyone know if it is? Its almost to infuriating to consider.

Yes, he is facing 10 years. He is not yet convicted that I could find.


Steubenville Rapist Released While Hacker Who Helped Expose Him Faces 10-Year Sentence

By Matt Essert January 9, 2014 36


Sometimes justice is not very just. Deric Lostutter, the 26-year-old hacker who went by the online alias, KYAnonymous, is facing charges after an FBI raid on his house in April for what the the agency is claiming is his illegal role in obtaining tweets and Instagram posts related to rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville last year. Meanwhile, one of the two rapists Lostutter helped expose was just released from prison 10 months after being sentenced to one year in prison.

Whether or not Lostutter did any actual hacking is unclear (the social media posts were obtained legally), but the fact that he could be facing more prison time than the rapists themselves is appalling.

Although he initially denied his involvement, Lostutter eventually admitted to being the masked man in a video that threatened action against the players involved in the girl's rape and the school officials involved in the cover up and that included the heinous tweets and Instagram posts he had obtained. The video was posted to the high school football team's website and helped bring national attention to this story. A highly disturbing cellphone video (WARNING: graphic language) of students joking about the victim was also released by Anonymous, but there's no apparent connection to Lostutter.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/78...-year-sentence

[Kobi]

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The husband of a woman stoned to death in Pakistan killed his first wife four years ago, police and relatives said Thursday, a shocking twist both showing how complicated justice can be and how dangerous life is for women in the country.

A mob of family members, including her father and brothers, beat 25-year-old Farzana Parveen to death Tuesday with bricks stolen from a construction site in the eastern city of Lahore as onlookers stood by, authorities said. Initially, many in Pakistan offered their condolences to Parveen's husband, Mohammed Iqbal, after the killing as the family apparently didn't want her to marry him.

But Thursday, Zulfiqar Hameed, deputy inspector general for Punjab police, told The Associated Press that authorities arrested Iqbal for the October 2009 killing of his first wife, Ayesha Bibi. Hameed could not offer details about the slaying, but said the case was withdrawn after a family member forgave him.

Under Pakistani law, those charged with a slaying can see their criminal case dropped if family members of the deceased forgive them or accept so-called "blood money" offerings over the crime.

Reached by the AP at his village near the town of Jaranwala, Iqbal said he could not speak because he was praying at his second wife's grave. He did not respond to other requests for comment after that.

One of Iqbal's five children, Aurang Zeb, said his father killed his mother in 2009 over a dispute. He said his father was arrested but the children later forgave him and the case was withdrawn.

"We don't want to discuss whatever had happened in the past, but I confirm that we had forgiven our father Iqbal," Zeb told the AP, adding that his father was in a state of shock after his second wife's death.

Two of Iqbal's cousins also said he killed his first wife but said he had been forgiven by one of his sons.

Pakistan, home to some 180 million people, is an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, and the majority of its citizens long have been fairly conservative. Arranged marriages are the norm among conservative Pakistanis, and hundreds of women are murdered every year in so-called honor killings carried out by husbands or relatives as a punishment for alleged adultery or other illicit sexual behavior that is perceived to bring shame upon her family.

Activists say "blood money" offerings often mean that crimes against women by their spouses or other family members are ignored.

Pakistan has one of the highest rates of violence against women globally. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group, said in a report last month that some 869 women were murdered in honor killings in 2013.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned Farzana Parveen's slaying in a statement Thursday, calling it "intolerable." He called on authorities in Punjab province to find the remaining culprits.

Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, also strongly condemned the slaying, saying she didn't want to call it an honor killing as "there is not the faintest vestige of honor in killing a woman in this way." She called on Pakistan's government to stop the slayings.

"The fact that she was killed on her way to court, shows a serious failure by the state to provide security for someone who — given how common such killings are in Pakistan — was obviously at risk," Pillay said in a statement Wednesday.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Thursday welcomed comments by senior Pakistani leaders condemning "this heinous crime" and hoped the perpetrators would quickly be brought to justice. She said it was at least the third so-called honor killing reported in Pakistan this week.

http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-slain...184702535.html

___

[LeftWriteFemme]

[Kobi]

UK leaders condemn Sudanese woman's death sentence

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister David Cameron and former leader Tony Blair have urged Sudan's government to lift the death sentence imposed on a Christian woman who refused to renounce her faith.

Cameron said the treatment of 27-year-old Meriam Ibrahim "is barbaric and has no place in today's world." Blair described the case as a "brutal and sickening distortion of faith."

Cameron told Saturday's edition of The Times newspaper that the British government was pressing Sudan to annul the sentence.

Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but who was raised by her Christian mother, was convicted of apostasy for marrying a Christian and sentenced to hang.

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-leaders-con...112441182.html

2 more arrests made in India gang-rape
Attack on teen cousins later hung from tree sparks outrage

Authorities arrested five men -- three brothers and two police officers -- who are facing rape and murder charges, said R.K.S. Rathore, a senior police officer.

The girls were out in the orchard relieving themselves Tuesday night when the attackers grabbed them, authorities said.

Toilets are rare in the village, forcing women to wander away into fields in the dead of night.

The lack of indoor plumbing leaves women in rural areas vulnerable to frequent rapes and beatings.

Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/national/2-more-...#ixzz33IPAypyl

Malaysian Girl Allegedly Raped By 38 Men

KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 (Reuters) - Malaysian police have detained 13 men and are looking for other suspects following allegations that a 15-year-old girl was raped by 38 men in an abandoned hut, media said on Friday.

Astro Awani television and and The Star daily reported that the assault took place in the northern state of Kelantan on May 20 when the girl met a girlfriend and was lured to an empty hut reported to be a local drug haunt.

The men took turns to rape her for hours. Police were also investigating whether her 17-year-old friend was also raped.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5415397.html

---------------------------------------

This isnt about sexually frustrated nerds without game, gun control, or any other excuses we used to explain male sexual violence against women.

The is about power, privilege, and entitlement of men. It is about using a penis as a weapon of mass destruction against our sisters.

And what are we fixated on? Let's see, does RuPaul has the right credentials to use the T word. Should the LA Clippers be sold to quell the controvery of its racist owner. And, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West taking a honeymoon stroll in Prague

There is something serious scewed up here.

[Kobi]

That's the apparent reality in Mauritania, the country with the world's highest incidence of modern slavery. Located in West Africa, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, an estimated 4% to 20% of people there remain enslaved. It was the last country in the world to abolish the practice -- in 1981. And it only criminalized owning humans in 2007.

Mbeirika Mint M'bareck, a 15-year-old girl, was rescued from slavery only to be subsequently charged with having sex outside of marriage, according to a letter activists drafted on her behalf. (It is unclear who fathered the child). That crime is potentially punishable by death by stoning, according to an expert I spoke with. The activists planned to send the letter to the country's ministry of justice on Monday.

"We are shocked and appalled that the prosecuting authorities would bring the charge of (adultery), as this young girl is evidently the victim of the heinous crime of slavery as well as statutory rape," according to the letter, which the activists provided.

The 15-year-old ex-slave was "heavily pregnant" during a court hearing, which apparently led to the charge of sex outside of marriage. Her alleged captor, meanwhile, was charged simply with "exploitation of a minor (without financial compensation)," as opposed to the charge of slavery, which carries a longer prison term.

The situation is frightening not just for the teenager -- who should be released from judicial control, should have the charges against her dropped and should have her case further investigated -- but for those women who remain in slavery in Mauritania. After all, as Sarah Mathewson, Anti-Slavery International's Africa coordinator, noted in an email to me from nearby Niger, news of this case is bound to deter others being held from trying to escape.

"The majority of women in slavery have children outside of marriage, partly because they are so often raped by their masters, or encouraged into sexual relationships from a young age but denied the right to marry formally," Mathewson wrote. "This charge against a young girl sends a clear message to other women in slavery: If you leave your slave-owner with your children and try to seek justice, not only will we not assist and protect you, we will also charge you for the 'crime' of extramarital sex."

Mauritanian government officials did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment on Monday morning. I will update this post if and when I do hear from them. I also have been unable to obtain court documents concerning Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's case, and will provide details if I do get the chance to view them.

Perhaps this case will help wake up the international community to the continued existence of slavery in the modern world. Mauritania has shown some encouraging signs of progress in recent years. Anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, after being imprisoned for burning passages of Koranic texts that he said condone slavery, was released from prison and ran unsuccessfully for president this year. He's won international human rights awards and was featured in a recent New Yorker profile. The government also has created an agency specifically dedicated to trying to end the vestiges of slavery.

"The fact that a girl rescued from a situation of slavery should face this charge is particularly deplorable, given the Mauritanian government's recent commitments ... to strengthen the legal and policy framework against the vestiges of slavery and to increase support for victims," says a letter to the Mauritanian minister of justice on Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's behalf, signed by international organizations such as Walk Free, Anti-Slavery International and Free the Slaves, as well as Mauritanian groups.

Mbeirika Mint M'bareck's case is a sad reminder that progress to date is far from enough. Her case also is a chance for Mauritania to show the world that it's listening. By releasing her from judicial custody and dropping any charges against her, the justice ministry could send an important message: That it's finally getting serious about providing justice and eradicating slavery.

[Update, posted on October 23 at 10 a.m. ET]

Charges against Mbeirika Mint M'bareck have been dropped and the young woman is now living free from judicial custody, according to her attorney. It's unclear exactly why the charges were abandoned. The attorney, El Id Mohameden M'bareck, said the charges likely were dropped before anti-slavery activists on Monday sent a letter to authorities urging the 15-year-old liberated slave not be prosecuted for having sex outside marriage. The attorney welcomed the news, but said it remains important that the girl's former master be charged with the crime of slavery, instead of a lesser offense, as he says is currently the case.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/20/opinio...rebar_facebook

[*Anya*]

Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:37am GMT

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Somali families living in Britain and the United States are bringing their daughters to Kenya to secretly undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) as their home countries crack down on the internationally condemned practice.

Families pay up to $300 for a girl's genitals to be cut, said circumcisers and an anti-FGM campaigner in Nairobi's Eastleigh district, nicknamed Little Mogadishu as it is home to refugees from neighbouring war-torn Somalia and ethnic Somali Kenyans.

"Somalis come from America and Europe," said one elderly circumciser, wearing a purple and white tie-dye headscarf.

"They always come to me because they are scared to do it there ... During the holidays, they come and I cut them."

The circumciser, who learned the trade as a teenager in northern Kenya, declined to give her name as Kenya has stepped up prosecutions for FGM.

>>>>> The ritual, which involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia, can cause haemorrhage, shock, childbirth complications, fistula and death.

Under Kenya's 2011 law, those practising FGM face a minimum of three years in jail or a fine, and life imprisonment if the girl dies. Some 50 cases are in court, with at least two people facing murder charges.

Christmas is the cutting season in Kenya as schools close for six weeks. The government's FGM prosecution unit took out newspaper adverts in November warning that it was monitoring communities that practise FGM.

>>>> Around 27 percent of Kenyan women and girls have been cut.

>>>> In Somalia the practice is almost universal.

>>>> Cutters in Kenya are changing their methods in an attempt to evade the law, switching from infibulation -- in which all external genitalia are removed and the vaginal opening stitched closed -- to sunna, where only the clitoris is cut or removed.

"I just cut a little," said the circumciser, gesticulating with hennaed fingernails. "Sunna is good. She still enjoys sex. If you cut it all, she suffers."

FGM is deeply entrenched among Somalis, most of whom believe it is a religious obligation for Muslims. Campaigners say there is nothing in the Koran that advocates FGM.

Circumcisers learn to perform FGM while training with elder women to become traditional birth attendants. Around half of women in Kenya deliver at home and rely on lay midwives.

'THE MODERN WAY'

An anti-FGM campaigner in Eastleigh said she met a Somali-American from Minnesota in December who came to Nairobi for two weeks to have her daughters, aged 12 and 13, cut.

"The mother feels like she is doing the right thing," the campaigner said. "She says they are not going to undergo pain because they are doing it the modern way."

The United States banned FGM in 1996 and has since made it illegal to take a girl abroad to be cut.

British Somalis are often wealthier and call circumcisers to perform FGM in their rented homes in more upmarket parts of Nairobi like Hurlingham, the campaigner said.

An estimated 65,000 girls in Britain are at risk of FGM which was outlawed in 1985. Since 2003 it has also been illegal to take a girl abroad for FGM.

Border Force officers have stepped up education and surveillance of airline passengers flying to and from FGM-practising countries, such as Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Most of the Somalis who come to Kenya to perform FGM lived in Nairobi before, often as refugees, the circumciser said.

In December, she cut a 7-year-old British girl whose elder sisters she had cut in Nairobi several years earlier when the family was living there. Others get her number from former clients in the Somali diaspora.

Leyla Hussein, co-founder of British anti-FGM group Daughters of Eve, said campaigners in Kenya had told her that the diaspora communities were helping keep cutters in business.

"I know loads of women who have been cut in Kenya," added Hussein, a psychotherapist who helps women with FGM.

Hussein, who was born in Somalia, said campaigners in Kenya had helped get cutters closed down only to see them reappear in "pop-up houses" during the school holidays when families from the diaspora arrive and pay double the money.

"They told me that when the diasporas come they will usually have a group of girls together so it's a lot of money and the cutters are not going to miss out."

The head of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, visited Kenya in October to launch a global campaign to end FGM in one generation.

Worldwide more than 130 million girls and women have undergone FGM in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to U.N. data.

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNew...nnel=0&sp=true