Welcome to an all day open thread hosted by “Foreign Policy and International Events Group”. Drop by to share links and stories or for commentary. (or just play peekaboo and say look what I found). Who are we and what we are trying do → Launching A Dailykos Discussions and Republishing Group For International or Foreign Policy Stuff
We use sources and links that might not familiar to most kossacks, what with this being a Foreign Policy and International stuffs group. So press right mouse button on links and open in new incognito/private tab/window to reduce your tensions somewhat.
DailyKos group This Week In The War on Women offer a weekly series discussing the topic on saturdays evenings. Here is the link to the latest ♀️ThisWeekInTheWarOnWomen: Teach Men2 Not Violate? Brain Science on Sociopolitics Shaping Behavior.
For the international edition I have opted to not include any specific incidents, but focus on general trends with cover how the war is waged, how it is being fought against and what is at stake. The reading material here is a curated collection of reports, editorials, analysis looking at trends, progression, and regression. And of course some calls for actions and policy changes
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War on Women is not localized to any particular geography, national boundary, religion, or language. War on women is conducted in just languages of relegation, opression, and violence. These occur beyond our own boundaries even if we might not have given it much thought beyond what turns up on our usual news/feeds. So perhaps a little window into the veriety of assault upon our sisters taking place which differs perhaps in degrees.
Presuming that today being sunday thus people might have slightly more time than usual for stuff to read and check out, I have opted to present a one off International edition. All of it at a single sitting might be just a little too much. So I suggest take a break now and then and come back to carry on reading this.
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Starting off with the policy briefs from UN,
📚⌨📙📒🌏 UN Women Policy brief: UN Women has a new policy brief that looks at UBI (Universal basic income). It is a seven page pdf document (available for download and distribution (document librarians, take note). With various UBI debates going on although it is currently practically unaffordable for developing nations, but still makes a good reading. Should the nations get round to improving economy it might even be affordable sometime in next 30 years. The concept is likely to bounce around the circles thus necessary for knowing the implications from a gender perspective.
Universal basic income: Potential and limitations from a gender perspective
SUMMARY
Over the past decades, a universal basic income (UBI) has repeatedly been put forward as a means to address increasing labour market precarity, jobless growth and rising poverty and inequality. Most recently, proponents have argued that UBI could provide much-needed protection in the face of economic, environmental and health crises, such as COVID-19. The implications of UBI for gender equality have received insufficient attention in these debates—despite the fact that feminists have long discussed its pros and cons. Some feminists hold that an unconditional income independent of paid work would enhance women’s agency in families, households, the workplace and the community, with particular benefit for those facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. Others caution that, in a climate of fiscal tightening and austerity, UBI could be used to justify the rollback of state responsibility and funding for other essential support measures, including care services, housing, education and health care. Building on their contributions, this policy brief discusses the potentialand limitations of UBI from a gender perspective and points to some of the specific design features that policymakers need to consider to make UBI work for women and transgender and gender-diverse people.1
How to spend the money, vanity projects or perhaps some schools so that more girls can go to school?
📙✒📒 Nepal: Government spent a tonne of money rebuilding Dharahara, the skyline tower structure that snapped and fell during 2015 earthquake.
This kind of cost balancing or setting priority for on what and how to spend/invest money is a South Asian dilemma that plagues all nations. While programmes like space programme in India (ISRO), or rural banking projects in Bangladesh, sea port building in Pakistan are easier to see the benefits of, it is harder to see how a vanity project for a momentary pride of having a construction project with no particular benefits except what is a temporary popularity boost for current government by association to a previous administration from two centuries ago seems a bit silly considering it came at cost of stuff like rebuilding schools. Kathmandu Post covered it in Billions spent on Dharahara but schools reconstruction suffering in lack of funds
The Post Disaster Recovery Framework prepared in May 2016 for the systematised and structured reconstruction of the 2015 earthquakes ravaged structures envisioned completing the reconstruction of schools in three years.
It had kept the individual homes, hospitals and academic institutions first in priority for reconstruction followed by the public infrastructures and heritage sites.
However, it has been five years since the framework came into effect, two years since the deadline passed, and thousands of classrooms from the hundreds of schools damaged in the earthquakes still await reconstruction for lack of adequate budget.
“Lack of adequate budget and delay in the release of needed budget is a major challenge in attaining the set goals,” Yadu Bikram Thapa, an officer at the education unit, said.
Around 9,000 people were killed while property worth billions of rupees turned to rubble in the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck on April 25, 2015.
📙✒📒Why are we erecting phalluses (or is that phallii?) Editorial at Kathmandu Post (26 Apr 21) is pretty annoyed that prime Minister even attended. Editor horrified at the idea that a current government would attemot to bolster its popularity by association with a famous and well regarded polictican from 2 centuries ago.
Editorial incorporating phallogocentrism (I had to open up a dictionary, wiki, and a few other essays to figure out what it meant- An extract from wiki further below) , Editorial, Phallic fallacies
We are living in the age of view towers. Flush with newfound money that they know not how to utilise, local governments are busy building view towers on mountaintops. You will not find a better example of an oxymoron. Each such view tower is a monumentalisation of the moronic nature and the poverty of thought that characterises our elected leaders. Let alone view towers, our leaders inaugurate as mundane a thing as a water tap to bolster their own public image.
Leaders with Lilliputian mentalities stand on tall towers in a bid to claim their position in history as towering figures. It is a different matter altogether that no great world leader has been remembered for the concrete towers he built or inaugurated. But that does not matter to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. He is in an inauguration overdrive of late, even as his government stares at the exit and he has to remake himself as ‘the great leader’ by any means whatsoever.
It is no wonder, then, that Oli would present himself, with great aplomb, as the unrivalled candidate to inaugurate the Bhimsen Stambha, or Dharahara, rebuilt after the 2015 earthquake. In any case, Oli has made the rebuilding of the tower his pet project and a matter of national pride. Why would he not? After all, the tower, situated right in the heart of Kathmandu City, has some historical-cultural significance. He knows how to hit the raw nerve of the common masses who, bored of the mundane and the mediocre all around, need something swanky and splendid to look up to.
Just in case it does not show up in the dictionary you are using, here from wiki
The phallogocentric argument is premised on the claim that modern Western culture has been, and continues to be, both culturally and intellectually subjugated by "logocentrism" and "phallocentrism". Logocentrism is the term Derrida uses to refer to the philosophy of determinateness, while phallocentrism is the term he uses to describe the way logocentrism itself has been genderized by a "masculinist (phallic)" and "patriarchal" agenda. Hence, Derrida intentionally merges the two terms phallocentrism and logocentrism as "phallogocentrism".
📙⌨✒📒🐾🌏 Pakistan - Child Marriage: Again and again so many child marriages take place. While I have marked this particular entry as “Pakistan”, this is only because the Op-Ed was written in the backdrop of and references a particularly well publicized marriage incident (between a 64 year old man and a 14 year old girl) in Pakistan and appeared in paper in Pakistan. As we are fully aware, this happens and is happening across many nations and religions. Child marriages rob the girls of oppurtunities, education, and subjects them to rape. Labelling it as “marital rape” is merely describing a small sliver of circumstance around the rape. Article lays out what is at stake for each, lays bares the excuses used, and proposes solutions. As always one of the fundamental changes required is a change in attitudes. Meanwhile, those of us who write Op-Eds, keep writing and sumbitting to as many prints as possible. Of course there are some publications who outright reject these pieces, but there are also many who will print them should one be submitted. As usual, take extra care if writing from or in hostile areas.
Article by Kishwar Enam (a paediatrician at AKUH and member of the child welfare initiative Kasur Hamara Hai) in the Dawn (28 Apr 2021) simply titled Child marriages
RECENTLY, the news of a 64-year-old MNA getting married to a 14-year-old girl circulated on social media. Barring a few protests from child rights activists and a couple of legislators, no action was taken against him. Teenagers getting married — even to a person three times their age — is not unusual in Pakistan. This is a form of sexual abuse in which the child is subjected to assault and deprived of their education and childhood. Also, a horrifying proportion of young girls are abducted, forcefully converted, and married to older men — all in the guise of a good deed done in the name of Islam, which, in fact, prohibits forced conversions.
As soon as a child is married, she is deemed an adult by society and is expected to be mature and responsible. Despite being in the most sensitive period of their life when they need support themselves, such children are made responsible for looking after someone else.
While both boys and girls are married off early, there are far more girls than boys who become victims of this practice. This largely stems from the gender inequality in our society. In Pakistan, when a girl is born she is considered a guest in her own home; the goal is to prepare her for her actual home, ie her future husband’s home. She is often considered a burden on her parents and married early to ‘protect family honour’.
📙⌨✒📒🐾🌏 Sex and Education: Periodically there have been a smatterings of articles, editorials and statements about need for Sex Education. However what gets taught depends on whoever is in control of the curiculum. National or federalized entities responsible for general school curriculum have not been particularly bothered to make the topics covered broad enough. A lot of that is perhaps related to the simple fact that these entities in control have been run by men.
Depending on geography, in places even the mechanics of reproduction taught as a matter of science is viewed as too much. Societies which have a higher pre-valence of organized religion have a stronger clout in exclusion of topics covered simply by the dint that they are able to marshall a stronger and vociferous opposition which has electoral hence policy impacts. In this backdrop a broader programme that at least touches upon aspects of periods, behaviour aka consent based sex, women’s health, maternity issues, expectations, history, and politics behind them is facing an uphill struggle.
As it is “gender norms”, that euphemistic term used to describe institutional, political, and social entrenchment of patriarchy, is so much evident even before people head into school. These arise and form out of what teaching content and material is available or used, as well as exposure to atiitudes in those very early years of life. There was that study in March, THE FUTURE AT FIVE: Gendered aspirations of five-year-olds (available for download and dissemination) from OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). A summery here Gender norms are clearly evident at five years of age based on that study.
Gender equity will not be achieved quickly if children continue to copy the gender norms of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. While some barriers in perceived possibilies are breaking down, gender norms are evident in young children’s views of their future.
The OECD’s International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study asked over 4 000 children what they wanted to do or be when they grow up. Most children had a definite idea of the type of the job they would like and were keen to share their views.
Boys’ choices more closely match traditional gender norms than the choices made by girls
While there is overlap between the job preferences of five-year-old girls and boys, a disproportionate number of boys see their future in traditionally gendered roles.. More than one in two of the 30 most popular roles selected by boys are in traditionally male-dominated occupations. In contrast, one in four of the 30 most popular roles selected by girls are in traditionally female-dominated fields.
📚📙📒🌏 On a related note within the learnt gender norms, and exclusion from opportunities despite talent, there was this news on the occasion of “International Girls in ICT Day” from UN News wire (22 Apr 2021) ‘Careers have no gender’, connect girls to tech, for a brighter future UN urges. The addresses by various luminaries and dignitaries failed to mention the various causes that are at the root of denying access to education. Mostly governance stuff like lack of schools, lack of material, lack of opportunity to goto school to by being married off, being kept at home to do housework, child labour, lack of legislative protection and lack of enforcement of existing protections were missing from all the well meaning statements.
Despite information and communication technology playing such a key role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief said that half the world remains offline, in his message marking International Girls in ICT Day, on Thursday – most of whom are women and girls in developing countries.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data, there is a 17 per cent gender gap in Internet use globally, which is even wider in least developed countries.
In some regions, this gender gap is growing, reinforcing gender inequalities by denying women and girls opportunities to access education, find better-paid jobs, and start new businesses.
📚✒📙📒🌏 With that backdrop Manos Antoninis (Director of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report) writes an Op-Ed in Al Jazeera (25th April) What role can schools play to end violence and sexual harassment?
Effective sex education programmes can help combat sexual violence in school and in society
When will it be safe for a woman to walk herself home at night without the threat of assault or worse by a man? And when do we arrive at the moment that all women are safe from their partners in their own homes? When will schools and workplaces be free of gender-based violence? How can we use the power of education to turn these norms around?
In the space of just a few months, we have been reminded yet again how vulnerable women still are to violence and harassment. The tragic murder of Sarah Everard in the UK was followed by the senseless shooting of six Asian American women in the state of Georgia. In February, 317 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped from their boarding school in the northwestern state of Zamfara. In India, as people were still reeling from the September 2020 gang rape and subsequent death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, a supreme court judge in New Delhi caused outrage after he was quoted as asking an accused rapist whether he would marry his school-aged victim. In Australia, former government employee Brittany Higgins said she was raped by a male colleague in a government minister’s office in 2019 Meanwhile, there are reports that male government staff have set up a Facebook group so they can share videos of sex acts performed in Parliament in Canberra.
Violence and sexual assault against girls and women are more common than we think. Globally, about 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.
📙⌨📒 Myanmar - With the situation in Myanmar not looking like it is progressing much, daily death tolls rising, civil war and armed conflict escalating, (Xref: Rape as weapon of war and Tigray further below), an article explaining and sharing personal experiences, and hopes and worries about any progress made towards equality. While a lot of news from Myanmar consists of daily events, some overarching handwringing about who can do what, Over at Al Jazeera (25 Apr 2021) a feature article by Umayam Khan where she relates how the junta is targetting women in and regression The women of Myanmar: ‘Our place is in the revolution’..
Some 60 percent of protesters against the military coup are women who fear their hard-won rights hang in the balance
Every day at sunrise, Daisy* and her sisters set out to spend several hours in the heat cleaning debris from the previous day’s protests off the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
Protests have erupted around the country since the military seized control of the government after arresting democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on February 1, and declared a year-long state of emergency.
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The military makes use of dalans – local people who are forced to spy on their neighbours and, in particular, to target women living alone whose homes are easy targets for looting and harassment. As a result, Daisy and her sisters have been forced to move home three times and are now in hiding with relatives.
Literature/Entertainment/Arts: Presentation of narrative irrespective of the medium used plays a big part in triggering debate, advocating changes, or at times in reinforcing entrenchment of existing social structures and constructs. So we end up with milestones in novels,films, TV programmes, songs that have an unexpected impact from the way they shape, present, and assert viewpoints. With that in context, a look at two TV series and a short film from three different places
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📙⌨💿📒 Nepali Social TV reality show Ainaa: An English language article/review about the TV show Ainaa (Mirror) appeared in the Kathmandu Post. The content is currently only available in Nepali (hopefully translations or subtitled shows will be available in future), the show itself is available at YouTube for viewing. Youtube - AinaaTVShow Playlist. Now in its 14th episode. The show is attempting to highlight and bring to discussion many of various social issues like, gender violence, rape, murde, child marriage, dowry, acid v attacks, caste etc etc . Tsering Ngodup Lama writes an article in the Kathmandu Post (23 Apr 21), introducing the show and fist episode to English language readers, Ainaa—mirroring our society
At the 14 minute and 55 second mark of the first episode of Ainaa, a social reality TV show, a wailing Dev Narayan Rasaily tries to explain, with great difficulty, how he desperately went looking for his nine-year-old daughter Reshma the morning she went missing.
A day later, her body was found in a nearby farm, and a post mortem report revealed that she was raped and subsequently murdered. This heart-rending incident occurred in Hariharpur village of Mithila Municipality in 2019.
As the episode unravels, viewers see Rasaily’s grief—raw and deep—and the immense sense of loss he still carries in his heart.
Apart from Rasaily, the episode features four other people—a young parent from Mahottari whose eight-month-old daughter was raped and murdered in 2018; a mother from Kathmandu whose 13-year-old daughter was raped and murdered in 2017; and another mother from Kanchanpur whose 13-year-old daughter also suffered the same fate in 2018.
📒🔊💿🎧📙India: An article in English, of all the places appearing in Modern Diplomacy, (a lot of times women journalists still have hard time getting stuff published), an interview with Priyanka Banerjee by Vidhi Bubna Priyanka Banerjee exposes the harsh realities of rape culture in India in her short film “Devi”
Priyanka Banerjee is the writer and director of the award winning film “Devi”. Devi as a film explores ideas related to rape culture in India. The entire short film is shot inside a theatre style single room. All the women in the film are sitting together in a room after their death and discussing how crowded the room is getting. The plot soon reveals that all these women have been raped.
The climax of the film catches all viewers off-guard and exposes them to the harsh realities of today’s India.
Tell us more about your journey as a director and writer
📙✒📒 China: Over in China Daily, six people respond to a debate kicked off by a TV drama that mimicked society, Should elder sister raise her little sibling?
Editor's note: The family drama My Sister (also known as 'Sister') has sparked heated discussions about whether 24-year-old An Ran (played by popular actress Zhang Zifeng) should sacrifice her own career and happiness to take the role of becoming her brother's caretaker. The movie unfolds with An Ran, an 18-year-old daughter who is often ignored in the son-obsessed family, unexpectedly faced the tough responsibility to care for her 6-year-old brother after a car accident that kills her parents. Should she devote herself to raising her brother? Readers share their opinions.
📙⌨📒 Jamaica: Mark the day on calendar, a protest and call to action taking place in Jamaica. This is a to protest against and highlight the ongoing epidemic of violence against women and girls (abductions, rape, murder, beatings etc) in Jamaica. News item in the Jamaica Observer (26 Apr 2021) Jamaica goes black against gender-based violence on May 13
IN response to the spate of heinous acts of violence committed against women and girls in Jamaica, and research concluding that one in four Jamaican women have experienced gender-based violence (GBV), the country is being urged to wear black on Thursday, May 13 in a silent protest against gender-based violence in Jamaica.
The islandwide one-day campaign is being coordinated by the Institute for Gender and Development Studies - Regional Coordinating Office (IGDS - RCO) and the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC).
“The primary objective of this campaign is to educate, inform and get the people of the island to understand that we must work together to end gender-based violence and urge our Government, that has signed on to the United Nations Sustainable Goals Agenda 2030, to amend all laws governing violence against women and girls, and family violence, before the end of 2021,” the IGDS-RCO said in a statement. “Together we can peacefully make our society safe for women and girls, and for all.”
📙⌨📒💫🌏 Divorce: Why is it so hard to get a divorce? Because men who control the legal system, the legislative processes, scocial, and religious structures do not allow it. With property rights, access to children, social attitudes being stacked against women, it is an uphill struggle even in places that have some protection in place. However when any such protections are missing or even explicitly denied it gets difficult to escape abusive marriages. Sometimes we make small progress, and sometimes the progress while seemingly small is transformative going forwards.
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📚⌨📙📒💫 India: One more op-ed/column about Kerala High Court decision regarding Muslim women’s absolute right to initiate divorce with no specific reason needed. (ref at LiveLaw Muslim Woman Has The Right To Invoke Extra-Judicial Divorce, Rules Kerala High Court, Overrules About Half-Century Old Precedent ). However this particular article is written by a pair of lawyers without too much lawyerly talk, M R Shamshad (an advocate on record in the Supreme Court of India) and Mohammad Umar (Assistant Professor of Law in Bennett University). It is much clearer than jubilatory and often exaggerated pieces that have appeared in media previously. Landmark Kerala HC judgement clarifies Muslim women’s right to initiate divorce
In the past, the Kerala High Court has delivered many landmark judgements in relation to Muslims’ divorce. This month, a Division Bench of the High Court was dealing with the issue of conditions in “Khula”, divorce initiated by the wife. The legal issue before the Court was whether a Muslim wife, once she has decided to leave the marriage for reasons that she feels are appropriate, has the right to pronounce unilateral extra-judicial divorce through Khula against her husband.
Undoubtedly, without the intervention of courts, a Muslim woman can unilaterally divorce her husband if, by contract, the husband has delegated the right to divorce to his wife. The second method is divorce by mutual consent, through the process called Mubaarat. Another right of a Muslim woman to divorce is by way of Khula, wherein she decides to terminate the marriage. This process may be called wife-initiated Talaq. Till now, Ulemas, particularly of the Hanafi School, have interpreted that Khula can be exercised only when the husband accedes to the wife’s request. If he refuses, the woman has no option but to approach courts of law under the provisions set out in the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act of 1939.
The Kerala High Court feels that compelling the wife to go to court for Khula frustrates the right guaranteed to her in the personal law, which is largely based on two primary sources — the Quran and Hadith (words or actions of the Prophet). The court draws an analogy from the right of the husband to pronounce unilateral Talaq, to say that both are of similar nature, adding that the husband’s approval as a condition in Khula is not correct. The judgment proceeds to clarify that the right to pronounce Khula is an “absolute right” conferred on the married Muslim woman and no specific reasons are required to invoke it, once there is a declaration from the wife for repudiation or termination of a marriage. It also says that the right to pronounce Khula cannot be invalid in case the wife does not offer to return the dower or any other material gain received by her during the subsistence of the marriage at the time of the said pronouncement. The only thing the wife must do before the pronouncement of Khula is to undertake efforts of reconciliation — just like a man is obliged to, before pronouncing husband-initiated Talaq, as declared in the Shamim Ara Judgment of the Supreme Court (2002).
Multiple concurrent wives are norm in many places (for the record we are against polygamy). It is difficult for a wife to get a divorce even in nations that do not permit polygamy. What seemed like a legislative progress in Egypt regarding a simple thing like a man having to inform first wife before to marrying a second concurrent wife turned out to be a mirrors and smoke legislative job. It was not even asking for consent or seeking agreement from first wife or anything. It was just a simple job of informing. When legislators need to put on some sort of show (usually to get some aid funds released) they bring out similar tricks in many places. Need for more women in legislation drafting process is urgent. So we head back into the same loop in the system that does not include women in the process so legislation becomes more stacked against civil society and more restrictive in participation.
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📚⌨📙📒💫 Egypt: the MeMo(23 Apr 2021) has a report about struggles by women in Egypt. It is written by Laila Ahmet and Amelia Smith titled How women in Egypt are defeating the government's archaic legislation
In February the Egyptian government tried to sell its draft personal status law on a clause that would see men who did not inform their first wife they were marrying a second, fined up to EGP 50,000.
On the surface it seemed a fairly reasonable suggestion, a closer look showed it was simply PR. The levy, approximately $2,000, was to be paid by the husband to the government.
"What is the relationship between the government and the harm that was committed to the wife?" asks Committee for Justice advocacy officer Shaimaa Aboelkhir: "The fine should be for the wife, not the government."
When details of the draft law, which is a rework of an existing personal status bill, were published on Youm7 earlier this year, the article had to be removed due to the number of complaints.
Some 300 organisations advocating for women's rights renounced the amendments, pointing out that this was yet another attempt by the government to marginalise civil society since they were excluded from the drafting process.
📚⌨📙📒 China: In the backdrop of revent news, a social fury in progress in China, report and view in SCMP (1 May 2021) For women, China’s new divorce law is a step back for gender equality
Chinese social media erupted recently over a Hunanese woman’s endless attempts to divorce her abusive, gambling-addicted husband since 2016. Four divorce petitions and two protective orders were not enough for Ning Shunhua to escape her violent husband.
Ning is now on her fifth divorce attempt. It will not be surprising if this one proves even tougher, given the new divorce law that came into effect this year.
Under the new law, couples filing for divorce are required to complete a 30-day cooling-off period. If one spouse decides to withdraw the divorce application during this period or does not turn up for the final approval, the other party has to either apply again or sue for a divorce, which can be costly. The law has faced tremendous public resistance.
The reason for the new law is simple: to curbimpulsive divorces as a way to improve the birth rate, according to government officials dismayed by the rising divorce rate. Since 2000, divorces have risen from 0.96 per thousand to 3.36 in 2019, and the rate has soared since the start of the pandemic.
📙✒📒🌏Witch Accusations: We are reminded again and again, Women being labelled a witch no matter where it takes place has the implicit endorsement and call for violence against women. Whether the term appears in the exalted pices at BBC, or those supposedly enlightned nations of USA, Canada and such, be they in UK or France or Germany, it does not matter. The end game is still the same. It is being wielded as a linguistic weapon for purposes of oppression and and continued violence against women. Notably in societies/communities where religion and religious beliefs are more pronounced, usage of term witch, whether as a curse, swear, or even as a “jest”, is still a call for violence. Religious texts and beliefs that make explicit references to witch/witchcraft are yet one more tool in the armoury. this weapon is used whether it be to get rid of “pesky” protestors, usually indigenous, trying to protect their habitat and indigenous lands, or to bring down and prevent a high vaulted women politicians of talent from position of authority.
Papua New Guinea: Following latest incidents resulting fromn accusations of witchcraft/sorcery labelled at some women an editorial at The National (27 April 2021) calls for End sorcery-related violence
POLICE in Port Moresby rescued two women from being tortured by a group of men who had accused them of practising sorcery in Port Moresby.
The two were tied and assaulted.
They had severe burns and knife wounds and were treated by St John’s Ambulance officers at the scene before being taken to hospital.
The incident happened at Mango Mine settlement at 5-Mile.
Just earlier this month, police in Eastern Highlands rescued a woman and her daughter who were accused of practising sorcery and tortured for several days after her community health worker (CHW) husband was believed to have died from Covid-19.
The mother, 45, and daughter, 19, had broken arms and burnt marks and cuts on their arms, heads and bodies when police found them captive in a settlement called Bush Fire in Goroka.
Sorcery-related violence and killings continue seemingly unabated in Papua New Guinea.
Sorcery-related activities only make a resurgence – perhaps only because the incidents were brought to the limelight by various quarters.
The real extent of sorcery-related violence is difficult to estimate because many cases go unreported.
Belief in sorcery or witchcraft is deeply entrenched and widely held in different forms across PNG, not only in remote and/or rural areas.
📚✒💻⌨📙📒📱💫🌏 Rape as weapon of war: When wars, civil wars, communal conflicts take place, sexual violence, rape becomes a weapon. Even the UN in the aftermath of Balkans, and Rwandan war categorized sexual violence as weapon of war. In 2008 UN Security Council passed Resolution 1820 (UN Security Council resolution 1820 on women, peace and security (2008). Here at UN Council on Humar Rights answering the pertinent question “Is rape really a matter for the United Nations?“ Rape: Weapon of war.
The latest iteration/addition to resolution in 2019 (UN release Security Council Adopts Resolution Calling upon Belligerents Worldwide to Adopt Concrete Commitments on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict) which was a much diluted version after (BBC: United States dilutes UN rape-in-war resolution).
With situation in many conflict zones worsening, especially Ethiopia - Tigray, DR Congo, and now Myanmar, there is an urgency to address and bring to forefront ongoing attrocities. If it is agnored in one region, it becomes normalized in another region and pattern of ignoring sexual violence sets in. Risk in every future conflict or escalation of existing conflicts will be towards acceptance as part and parcel of war.
Some specific stuff a bit more closely related to Ethiopia-Tigray below.
📚✒📙📒🌏 Ethiopia - Tigray - Eritrea: Over at Al Jazeera (15 Apr 2021) news Top Ethiopia health official alleges ‘sexual slavery’ in Tigray was followed by another article detaling existing conditions Al Jazeera (21 Apr 201) by Lucy Kassa in ‘A Tigrayan womb should never give birth’: Rape in Tigray
Warning: The story below contains descriptions of extreme sexual violence
Akberet* knew she was no longer safe.
The Amhara fighters in charge of her hometown of Humera and other disputed areas of western Tigray had just ordered all Tigrayans in her neighbourhood to leave their homes within 24 hours.
“The militiamen who have been terrorising us for months,” said the 34-year-old mother of three, “told us we are not allowed to live there anymore, because we are Tigrayans. They ordered us to leave empty-handed. They said all the properties we owned belong to Amharas, not to us.”
The Amhara forces entered western Tigray from neighbouring Amhara region in support of Ethiopian federal forces in November last year, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against Tigray’s then-ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Since then, the Amhara, who are Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group, have taken control of several areas in the region – land, they claim, that historically has been theirs.
Akberet wasted no time after the ultimatum.
📙✒📒🌏💫 Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former administrator of the United Nations Development Program), and Rachel Kyte (dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) write in Foreign Policy (27 Apr 2021) lending their weight to call for adressing rape as a warcrime, In Tigray, Sexual Violence Has Become a Weapon of War
In recent weeks, women in Tigray, Ethiopia, have started coming forward with the most painful stories imaginable about how they have been sexually violated and tortured by soldiers of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies.
It takes courage for any woman to speak about her experience of rape. In a conservative society such as Ethiopia’s, it takes special bravery for a woman to share the most intimate and agonizingly raw details about her ordeal.
Every journalist or humanitarian worker who has interviewed these survivors says that the reported cases are only a fraction of the true number. Medical staff report that the majority of the cases they are seeing are women and girls who have been subjected to horrific sexual assault. Those who speak out know that they are thereby placing themselves are at risk of reprisal.
📙✒📒🌏💫 Cameroon: In the back drop of continuing violence between English speaking regions and French speaking regions, Jess Craig, filed this report in Al Jazeera (29 Apr 2021) Sexual violence pervasive in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions
Buea, Cameroon – Every day, Gladys, a 33-year-old vendor in Buea, the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region, heads to Muea market to sell vegetables, sweets and other food items.
“But only after the sun rises,” she said. “All day I worry it will be the day I am attacked by those boys [or] the military.
Gladys’s fear and anxiety are shared by many women across Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions, where an armed conflict between separatist groups and government forces has been ongoing since 2016.
Al Jazeera interviewed women across the regions, including victims, who spoke of a pervasive fear of sexual assault and violence perpetrated by armed separatists, military personnel and civilians.
📚✒📙📒🌏 Activist/Support Organizations: Activist organizations that provide any form of protest, advocacy, lobbying, support, recording incidents, or even just writing or talking about to highlight are doing very much essential and critical work.
Mexico: People are nevertheless attempting to advocate for end to gender violence, and providing, preparing support organizations. Here at global voices, an introduction to Mermaid Project in Mexico (content available in Spanish and English) detailing the background and what they are doing, article by Melissa Vida translation by Allison Janos in Global Voices (27 Apr 2021) ‘The Mermaid Project’ highlights Mexico’s gender violence problem
In Mexico, 10 women are murdered each day. Feminist organizations and artists denounce this violence, which occurs at home as well as in the streets, and the lack of political response. From his work the Siren Project, the photography of Pablo Tonatiuh Álvarez Reyes wants to give a metaphorical look at the killings to awaken some Mexicans from the numbness they feel amid the press releases, unfortunately repetitive in their morbidity.
Álvarez Reyes chose the metaphor of the mermaid in his photography series because this mythological being “has had a sexist representation in paintings throughout much of art history,” as he told Global Voices by email. “It is related to sexual temptation, which men must avoid in order to continue on their way, so to speak, they are seen primarily in relation to man, without considering their own morals or temptations.”
To this sexist representation, he wanted to give a new, symbolic meaning. In this series, “they are victims of a system that sells, buys, confines, and kills them, considering them inferior beings, subject to the will of others.”
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