One in four men in South Africa have admitted to rape and many confess to attacking more than one victim, according to a study that exposes the country’s endemic culture of sexual violence.

Three out of four rapists first attacked while still in their teens, the study found. One in 20 men said they had raped a woman or girl in the last year.

South Africa is notorious for having one of the highest levels of rape in the world. Only a fraction are reported, and only a fraction of those lead to a conviction.

For full article, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/south-africa-rape-survey

IkamvaYouth has been selected as a finalist in the Ashoka/Hewlett foundation “Champions of Quality Education in Africa” for its IkamvaYouth-in-a-Box project, please vote for it on http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/node/20705/finalists after you sign up and in. Top 3 organizations win $5000 which means every vote counts.

IkamvaYouth is a by-youth, for-youth non-profit organization that enables South African youth to get themselves out of poverty and into university or employment. We provide after-school academic support, mentoring, computer classes, HIV awareness workshops, testing and counseling and extra-curricular activities to learners in grades 9 to 12. We work with the same committed learners throughout their final years in secondary school to ensure that they access post-school opportunities.

Thanks to Ann DeMarle for this moving statement (see below) about why she is leading the design group for a joint project of Population Media Center and Champlain College to create an electronic game to prevent violence against women. PMC is part of this project for two reasons: the imperative of ending violence against women as a human rights issue and the fact that beaten women are not in a position to negotiate for use of family planning or any other reproductive health care. As you can see, the project is in need of support. Contributions can be made to either Population Media Center or Champlain College and should be designated for the electronic game against gender based violence. Ann’s appeal has already brought in $30,000.

Violence Against Women Electronic Game brochure (836 KB, PDF)

Violence Against Women Electronic Game Summary (Word doc., 55 KB)

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Dear family and friends,

It was a little thing, a one year old in a high chair who was playing with her food. But it made her father angry. And he became angry with her young mother. So he threw his glass in the mother’s face…over dinner.

Continue Reading »

Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, has made it a bit harder for men to kill their daughters and sisters for the sake of “honour”. The crime had previously carried no minimum sentence; the maximum was a year. Now, a presidential decree has made a small but significant change: honour-killers must face at least two years in prison.

It is still common, in Syria and throughout the Middle East, for men to murder female relatives deemed to have besmirched the family’s moral standing—for example, if they have had sex outside marriage or wear immodest clothes. No one knows exactly how many women die in this way, because many cases go unreported. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that, across the world, as many as 5,000 women a year may be fatal victims.

For full article, visit:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14045284

Sometimes, it’s the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place.

This is such a story.

It’s being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq’s progress as it does about Iraq’s resistance to change.

For full article, visit:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/23/world/fg-iraq-woman23

This is from the UN News Centre.
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Violence against women, including rape, is widespread in Afghanistan, according to a new United Nations report, which details the extent of the problem against a backdrop of impunity and a failure by authorities to protect women’s rights.

“This report paints a detailed and deeply disturbing picture of the situation facing many Afghan women today,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said of the 32-page report issued jointly by her office (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

For full article, visit:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story

Congratulations to Bob Walker for getting this letter published in the New York Times on April 22.
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“Women, Extremism and Two Key States” (editorial, April 15) justly condemns the utter disregard for women’s rights shown by Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a moral outrage. And more.

Requiring Afghan women to have sex whenever their husbands demand it will only perpetuate severe poverty and gender inequality in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Though many Afghan women want to limit or space their pregnancies, religious extremism is a big obstacle. Few Afghan women currently use modern contraceptives. As a consequence, women in Afghanistan bear an average of nearly seven children, and the Afghan population is on pace to double in size over the next 25 years. Maternal and child mortality rates are already exceptionally high, and school completion rates, particularly for girls, are extremely low.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion

From the Muslim Women Newsletter of March 2009.
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Muslim women around the world are facing a “growing crisis” as Islamic governments fail to honour commitments to end inequality and violence against them, a senior UN official has warned.

Yakin Erturk, the UN’s rapporteur on violence against women, said at a weekend conference that women must demand their governments carry out pledges to grant equal rights and ensure their safety

“There is no time left to lose any more as this is a growing crisis,” she told AFP after a speech which dealt with the issue at an international conference on “Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/muslim-women-face-crisis-over-violence-un/423804/

2008 Annual Report (PDF, 2.74 MB)
Continue Reading »

Thanks to Bob Walker for this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor
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Nigerians have a saying: If you want something said, tell a man. If you want something done, tell a woman.

Today, they appear to be taking that message to heart, as one of the world’s most corrupt countries seems poised to begin reversing its debilitating slide by empowering women to get things done.

They have their work cut out for them. Nigeria, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, faces major systemic problems: overpopulation, ethnic and religious conflict, and a “resource curse” (oil).

For full article, visit:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0604/p09s01-coop.html