|
|
Vol. XXI
# 3 - September 2009
|
|
 |
Inside
Step
forward
Fundamentalism
Dress code
Stop stoning, stop killing
Violence against women
Research
Women in politics
Challenging norms, changing laws
Women, rights and laws
Alert for action
|
|
Download
PDF Document |
|
Step forward |
|
Mozambican Assembly
Passes Bill: Domestic Violence is a Public Crime
 MOZAMBIQUE: The Mozambican
parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, passed the first reading
of a bill on domestic violence against women, severely increasing
the penalties for such violence. The bill states that in any case
of domestic violence, the minimum and maximum prison terms
established for crimes such as assault and causing grievous bodily
harm will be increased by a third. But, after assessing the family
situation, the court may replace a prison sentence by a period of
community work.
|
|
National Assembly
bill outlaws domestic violence
ISLAMABAD: In a major move against
domestic violence against women and children, the National
Assembly passed a private bill aimed to prevent the prevalent
curse through quick criminal trials and a chain of protection
committees and protection officers. The Domestic Violence
(Prevention and Protection) Bill must also be passed by the Senate
to become law, which will provide for monetary and other relief to
the aggrieved persons through protection orders. Violators will be
prosecuted and their crimes will be punishable by jail terms and
fines to be given to the sufferers.
|
|
Civil society
recommendations on domestic violence bill
Shirkat Gah, in consultation with
civil society organizations and legal experts and professionals
reviewed the Domestic Violence Bill passed by the National
Assembly of Pakistan.
|
|
Court of women on dowry
and related forms of VAW
INDIA: Dowry deaths or sex selection resulting in the termination of
female foetuses, are but two most extreme manifestations of the
phenomena of violence against women that is taking new and more
contemporary forms.
|
|
Government
postpones discussion of draft law
LEBANON: The members of the
National Alliance for Legalizing the Protection of Women from
Family Violence did not get the result they were expecting
when the bill for the Protection of Women from Family Violence
was listed number 1 on the Cabinet’s agenda.
|
|
A first: Women
all set to guard borders
 INDIA: History was created when the Border
Security Force (BSF) inducted the first batch of women
constables, who will be deployed in a combat role on the
international border.
|
|
European Union:
Resolution passed combating female genital mutilation
The European Parliament passed a
resolution on March 24th, 2009, to fight female genital
mutilation (FGM) in the EU. The resolution takes into regard
the previous articles, conventions, platforms, resolutions,
and declarations defining and protecting human rights and
women’s rights which have been passed around the world since
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
|
|
Farida Shaheed
Appointed as Independent Expert on Cultural Rights
 The Human Rights Council
concluded its 12th regular session by naming the new
Independent Expert on cultural rights, Farida Shaheed,
Director of Research at Shirkat Gah - Women’s Resource Centre,
longstanding council member of Women Living Under Muslim Laws
and Acting Director of Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts.
|
|
 Rashida Manjoo
is the new UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women
Ms. Rashida Manjoo was appointed
as the new UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women,
its causes and consequences for an initial period of three
years by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2009.
|
|
Fundamentalism |
|
Chechen rights
campaigner found dead
 MOSCOW: A prominent human rights
activist kidnapped in Russia’s Chechnya republic was found a
few hours later near a highway in a neighbouring republic,
dead of gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Natalia
Estemirova worked for the human rights organisation, Memorial,
in the Chechen capital of Grozny and documented abuses by law
enforcement agencies.
|
|
Children’s
charity head, husband shot dead in Chechnya
 MOSCOW: She dedicated her life to easing the
suffering of children scarred by Chechnya’s brutal wars. But
good deeds were not enough to save Zarema Sadulayeva from the
hitman’s bullet. Ms Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik
Dzhabrailov, were found dead in the boot of a car in the
Chechen capital, Grozny, a day after they were abducted from
the headquarters of her children’s charity, Save the
Generation.
|
|
Chechen
president blamed for activist’s murder
MOSCOW: Chechnya’s strongman was on Thursday
accused over the killing of a rights campaigner who uncovered
abuses in the volatile region, as the West pressured Russia to
solve the murder. Memorial, the acclaimed rights group of
Natalya Estemirova, said the pro-Kremlin Chechen president
Ramzan Kadyrov was responsible for the murder, irrespective of
who ordered the killing.
|
|
Political storm
over Congress leader’s rape remarks
 NEW DELHI: Activists from
India’s ruling party protested over the arrest of a party
leader for allegedly suggesting a high-ranking politician
should be raped to better understand the crime. Rita Bahuguna
Joshi, who heads the ruling Congress in India’s most populous
state, Uttar Pradesh, was placed under 14 days custody pending
investigations for allegedly promoting social enmity,
insulting a woman’s modesty and insulting a person of lower
caste. No charges have been filed yet, but the three offences
are punishable by up to 10 years in jail.
|
|
Art under divine
dictatorship
 Under the liberal President
Khatami, Tehran’s art scene became a symbol of an Iran that
was open to the world. While exhibitions such as ‘Far Near
Distance’ in Berlin or ‘Iran.com’ in Freiburg, Germany,
introduced Iranian artists to an interested European audience,
the boom in Islamic art pushed the prices of their work to
dizzying heights in Dubai, London and New York. All this may
well change in future because artistic reflection of reality
is increasingly a thorn in the side of the country’s radical
Islamists.
|
|
Iranian court
begins mass trial
TEHRAN: An Iranian court on
Saturday charged a French woman, two Iranians working for the
British and French embassies in Tehran and dozens of others
with spying and aiding a Western plot to overthrow the system
of clerical rule. This was the second mass trial in a week
after the disputed June 12 presidential election.
|
|
I Miss You Swat
I Miss You Swat
The laughter of the children,
the happiness and hope of the people suddenly vanished into
thin air. All now turned into tears; nothing seems to be dry.
|
|
A woman’s story
in the Pakistan camps. Telling the human story
PAKISTAN: For years, Mariam, a
young mother of six from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, was obliged
by tradition and custom to remain at home looking after her
children and keeping house for her husband, Shaukat. She could
scarcely imagine how much of that would change when conflict
came to the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
|
|
JUI-F stops
women’s entry into Nawabshah marathon
 NAWABSHAH: The Shaheed
Benazirabad district government on Thursday changed a marathon
of ‘males and females’ into an ‘only male event’ schedule to
be held in President Asif Zardari’s hometown on August 14,
after receiving warnings from a religious party.
|
|
“Authorities should
reconsider law on alcohol”
MALAYSIA: On July 20, the Pahang Syariah High Court sentenced part-time
model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, to a RM 5,000 fine and six lashes
of the rotan for drinking beer. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Chairman of the
Cordoba Initiative, an international organisation devoted to improving
West-Muslim world relations, urged the authorities to reconsider the law
on alcohol.
|
|
Woman to be caned for
drinking alcohol
MALAYSIA: Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced in July to six lashes
and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for consuming alcohol, said a
Syariah High Court official.
|
|
Christian community
faces new wave of violence
 IRAQ: A new wave of violence targeting Iraq’s
Christian community has raised questions about the safety of
religious minorities amid concerns about Iraqi forces’ ability to
maintain security after the June 30 withdrawal of US combat
forces.
|
|
Christians’ homes
burnt over ‘desecration’
 TOBA TEK SINGH: A mob burnt 75
houses of Christians over the alleged desecration of the Holy
Quran in Azafi Abadi at Chak 95-JB on Gojra-Faisalabad Road late
on Thursday. Atif Jamil Pagaan and Ashfaq Fateh told a press
conference that 75 houses were burnt and two churches ransacked by
the residents of a neighboring village over reports that Mukhtar
Maseeh, Talib Maseeh and his son Imran Maseeh had desecrated the
papers inscribed with Holy Quran verses at a wedding ceremony.
|
|
Dress Code |
|
Wardrobe woes
KHARTOUM: Sudan has barred Lubna
Hussein, a woman who faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in
violation of decency laws, from travelling abroad. Hussein was
leaving for Lebanon when she found that her name was on a
blacklist.
|
|
Update: Flogging
sentence dropped and fine paid
SUDAN: Lubna Hussein was released
after a day in prison after the government backed Journalists
Union paid her fine. They did so without her consent.
|
|
Veiled
contradictions
PARIS: Fashion week in Paris, and after a display
of pink and purple mini-dresses in an elegant apartment near the
presidential palace, an assistant wheels out a rack bearing two
very different creations: black abayas. The billowing gowns have
been made for the Saudi market by Paris-based couturier Adam
Jones.
|
|
Stop Stoning, Stop
Killing |
|
New campaign to
address violence against women
 INDONESIA: ‘Stoning’ as a punishment
under Syariah Law does not exist in Indonesia. However,
researchers in Makassar have encountered a case of a
local/regional regulation proscribing whipping as a punishment
under Syariah law. This regulation is one of the concrete
manifestations of the influence of Islamic fundamentalist forces.
|
|
Aceh passes adultery
stoning law
Indonesia’s province of Aceh has
passed a new law making adultery punishable by stoning to death.
The law also imposes severe sentences for rape, homosexuality,
alcohol consumption and gambling. Opponents had tried to delay the
law, saying more debate was needed because it imposes capital
punishment.
|
|
Sisters in Islam
criticize whipping of women
Malaysia: In an open letter,
‘Sisters in Islam’ (SIS) urged the Malaysian government to review
whipping of women as a form of judicial punishment by the Syariah.
Not only does this contradict civil law where women are not
punishable by whipping under Section 289 of the Criminal Procedure
Code, it also violates human rights principles, in particular the
right to be free from cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or
punishment. Whipping for alcohol consumption is not proportional
to the gravity of the offence.
|
|
 150 women face
flogging for adultery
MALDIVES: Almost 150 women living in
the Maldives face a public flogging for indulging in extra-marital
sex after being convicted by the Muslim country’s conservative
courts. Around 50 men also face the punishment.
|
|
Violence Against
Women |
|
Pregnant Palestinian
women chained in Israel jails
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian human
rights group slammed Israeli treatment of Palestinian female
prisoners in a UN-sponsored report saying pregnant women are often
shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth.
|
|
Member of women’s
movement raped and tortured by police
TURKEY: According to a complaint
made to the Human Rights Association in Turkey, a young Kurdish
woman who was leaving her home at around 2:00 pm on June 21 was
stopped by four plain-clothes armed police officers. When she said
that the home owner whom they were asking about was not in, they
used threats and forced her inside.
|
|
Women prisoners
tortured during interrogation
A survey of different jails
conducted by the AGHS Legal Aid Cell revealed that most women
prisoners were subjected to physical abuse during police
interrogations.
|
|
Call for tougher
laws on rape
AFGHANISTAN: According to a report
by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
rapists in Afghanistan too often get away with their crime. Norah
Niland, the OHCHR representative in Afghanistan, said rape victims
lack access to justice, and shame and stigma are attached to the
victims rather than the perpetrators.
|
|
Ban on abortion
violates UN Convention against Torture
NICARAGUA: Based on Amnesty
International's research in Nicaragua, carried out with Nicaraguan
medical professionals, women, girls, human rights defenders and
representatives from civil society, the briefing - ‘Nicaragua: The
impact of the complete ban of abortion in Nicaragua: Briefing to
the United Nations Committee against Torture’ - argues that the
complete ban on abortion violates Articles 1, 2, 14 and 16 of the
UN Convention against Torture.
|
|
Court grants blood
money to dead maid’s family
Saudi Arabia: A Saudi court has
authorized the payment of SR 200,000 in blood money to the family
of Suryati Bint Dulbari Nurisman, an Indonesian maid, who the
authorities say was tortured and beaten to death by a Saudi
housewife.
|
|
Too young to marry
DHAKA: According to the UN
Children’s Fund State of the World’s Children 2009 report, more
than 64 percent of girls marry before they are 18. One-third of
teenage girls aged 15 to 19 are mothers or pregnant in Bangladesh
today, with adolescent mothers more likely to suffer birth
complications than adult women.
|
|
Research
|
|
How did 100,000,000
women disappear?
 In India, China and sub-Saharan
Africa, millions upon millions of women are missing. They are not
lost, but dead: victims of violence, discrimination and neglect. A
University of British Columbia economist, Siwan Anderson, is
amongst those trying to find them - not the women themselves, who
are long gone, but their numbers and ages, which paint a sad and
startling picture of gender discrimination in the developing
world.
|
|
Women in Politics |
|
Women councillors
threaten agitation
MANSEHRA: Women councillors have
threatened to launch an anti-government movement if the local
bodies are abolished. They said that on August 12, 2009, hundreds
of women councillors will take out a procession and block the
Karakorum Highway to protest the decision.
|
|
Women want greater
political representation
LEBANON: While Lebanese women today
enjoy senior positions in the private sector, political
appointments have all but eluded them. Lebanese women were granted
suffrage in 1953, yet to this day they face considerable obstacles
entering politics in a country where political dynasties and
patriarchy rule. Most women who do enter politics do so ‘wearing
black,’ filling a position made available by a deceased male
relative.
|
|
Kuwaiti women take
first seats in parliament
KUWAIT: Women have won four seats in
Kuwait’s parliament, the first women to do so in the Gulf Arab
state’s history, official election results showed on Sunday.
Kuwaiti women were first given the right to vote and run for
office in 2005 but failed to win any seats in the 2006 and 2008
elections.
|
|
Women’s
participation in the election process and in political leadership
AFGHANISTAN: Due to the proximity of Afghan
elections in August 2009, women rights activists and civil society
actors have launched the Five Million Afghan Women Campaign in
order to support women’s political participation.
|
|
Women’s political
participation critical to addressing developmental issues
EGYPT: Egypt elected the first Arab
woman to parliament in 1957, but in the half century since, the
most populous country in the Arab world has gone from being a
leader in women’s political participation to a laggard.
|
|
Women take key role
in protests
IRAN: Iranian women have been on the
front lines of anti-government protests challenging the official
results of the June 12 election, in which President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was declared the victor.
|
|
A political wife, a
women’s movement
IRAN: Mr. Moussavi, who is not a
very charismatic speaker and had left politics nearly 20 years
ago, saw his prospects for victory increase when his wife, Zahrad
Rahnavard, joined him in the campaign. The well-publicized picture
of them holding hands was not merely symbolic.
|
|
Indian parliament
might have 33% more women
 NEW DELHI: An Indian parliamentary
standing committee on Law and Justice has found acceptable a
proposition to increase the number of seats for women in
parliament by 33 percent.
|
|
Challenging norms,
changing laws |
|
Battered Afghan
wives opt for divorce instead of suicide
HERAT: After regular beatings,
torture and attempted murder by her husband, 35-year-old Zahra
tried to burn herself to death to escape her marriage. Then she
learned of a safer option: divorce.
|
|
Twenty20 cricket:
women’s team ignored
 PAKISTAN: While the entire nation
watched the ICC World Twenty20 final, in England, excitement
growing with each ball, another Pakistani team playing India for
the same shield, the ICC Twenty20, pulled no crowds. They were our
women’s eleven. They too needed encouragement.
|
|
Saudi prince backs
women’s sports
RIYADH: Appealing to a powerful
Saudi prince, an 8-year-old girl asked why she was not allowed to
play sports in school like boys. She got an unexpected response:
The prince said he hoped government schools for girls would allow
playing fields.
|
|
Saudi women hold
protest at varsity
RIYADH: Scuffles broke out on Sunday
when hundreds of Saudi women students held a rare protest at Taif
University over alleged corrupt admission policies. The women
accused the University of admitting less qualified students and
closing admissions before the official registration date.
|
|
Making the state
protect women
TURKEY: In a landmark decision on
domestic violence, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has
said Turkey failed to protect a woman from being murdered by her
son-in-law and ordered Ankara to pay damages.
|
|
Women, rights and
laws |
|
Women to get equal
nationality rights
BAHRAIN: The agony of more than
2,000 families here with stateless children might be over soon
with the decision of a state-run organisation to push for equal
nationality rights for women and men.
|
|
Honour killing law
amended
 Syria has scrapped a law limiting
the length of sentences handed down to men convicted of killing
female relatives they suspect of having illicit sex. Women’s
groups had long demanded that Article 548 be scrapped, arguing it
decriminalised ‘honour’ killings.
|
|
Court ratifies
guilty verdict on 75 year old woman
Update on: Court
sentences 75-year-old woman to lashes (Vol. XXI No. 1 & 2, June
2009)
SAUDI ARABIA: On August 25 the court
of Al-Shamli, north of Hail, found Mrs Khamisa Sawadi guilty of
the charge of khilwa (mingling with two young men to whom she was
not immediately related), and the higher court in Riyadh ratified
their verdict. One of the two young men tried alongside Sawadi may
face additional charges for filing a law suit against the
religious police.
|
|
No legal exemption
for ‘honour crimes’
JORDAN: Legal experts and religious leaders insist
that there should be no exemption for so-called honour crimes
under the law.
|
|
Jordan fatwa bans
‘virginity checks’
JORDAN: A Jordanian institute has
issued a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, banning the practice of
pre-marital virginity examinations for women. The Jordanian
Committee of Religious Decrees and Islamic Studies said that such
examinations were prohibited under Islamic law. The fatwa said
such examinations were a form of abuse against women.
|
|
Alert for action |
|
Urgent need to
repeal Blasphemy Laws
PAKISTAN: Women Living Under Muslim
Laws (WLUML) International Solidarity Network calls for the
government of Pakistan to repeal its laws on blasphemy. The urgent
need for law reform has been highlighted by the recent deadly
attacks on a Christian community in Punjab, Pakistan, whose
members were accused of desecrating the Qur’an.
|
|
|
|
[Home
-
Top] |
