International Women's Day - events & background

[Pogo]

I'm surprised to see no word about this today... a day of commemoration born proudly in the United States, yet the rest of the world seems more aware of it than we are.
Wonder what that says... see also the note on the "ten best" list below:

In 1908, the Socialist Party of American [sic] established a day to support the garment workers and a year later, behind the slogan “Bread and Roses,” the commemoration spread to Europe. The deaths of 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York, showed the prescience of those original protests and the International Women’s Day movement gained steam in demonstrating against the slaughter of the trenches in World War I and was instrumental in the downfall of the Russian Czar.

At its core, International Women’s Day was about the right to work – and the right to work in fair conditions, properly compensated for labor, and legally organized in open forums. -- Interntional Women's Day and the Right to Strive

On the page ^^ Forbes lists the "ten best countries in the word for women" based on health and survival, access to education, political empowerment and economic participation.
Where does the US rank? It's not even on the list.

....

It's International Women's Day. The event, born of the socialist movement in the United States the early 1900s, has spread across the world in the century since.

But the day looks very different across the globe, much like the differences in the lives of women worldwide. Here's how the event is being celebrated across in different parts of the world:

...Turkey: Women splattered with artificial blood protested domestic violence, while the Turkish parliament passed laws that will try to protect women and children from abuse. "The discriminative implementations against women and domestic violence should be stopped," President Abdullah Gul said, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.

Sudan: The day meant freedom for about 4,000 prisoners in Sudan who are being released to mark the day, the Associated Press reported. The prisoners included hundreds of women and children.

... Egypt: Hundreds of women marched to demand the right to help draft the new constitution. "Women have yet to gain any significant influence in the new Egypt, revealing the complexities of defining gender rights in a nation colored by Islam, inundated by Western media permissiveness and ruled by military men operating in a cloistered realm of gold stars and salutes," The Times recently reported.

Somalia: Women held a parade, the first one of its kind since the Shabab, an Islamic militant group, was ejected from the capital, Mogadishu, the Associated Press reported. - What's Happening Around the Globe

....

Nonprofit organization Women for Women International is organizing bridge walks all over the world on March 8 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. With more than 100 events scheduled from Canada to China, the program aims to raise awareness of the crisis female survivors of war face every day.

On March 8, singer Annie Lennox will lead the march in London across the Millennium Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. Walks are also scheduled on the Great Wall of China, at Niagara Falls, on the glass Window Bridge in Eleuthera, Bahamas, in Brussels, on the President Costa e Silva bridge in Rio de Janeiro, in Cambodia, on the Nizamudin Bridge in New Delhi, on the Joe Dolan Bridge in Mullinger, Ireland, and in Nairobi, Mexico, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

The program is called Join Me on the Bridge and was conceived by two program directors for Women for Women working in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo - two countries ravaged by war in recent years and where women are frequently subjected to violence as a result. -- Walk Over a Bridge for International Women's Day

 

[Pogo]

 

[waltky]

On International Women’s Day, protesters fight for laws to keep women safe...

After India Gang Rape, Fighting for Change
March 08, 2013 — In terms of freedom, Swati Varma is not asking for much more than the ability to be herself.

“Just to be able to walk on the street, wearing what I want to wear and not be stared at, that’s a privilege," says Swati Varma, who is a psychologist. "Most of the time when we go out here, we have to be very conscious of what we are wearing, because all the eyes, both men and women, are on us. So personally I am here, because I just want to be.” Since the December 16 gang rape and subsequent death of a young woman in New Delhi, protesters have been gathering regularly in the capital to make sure their voices are heard.

New Delhi is infamously known as the rape capital of India, with 706 incidents recorded in 2012 by the National Crime Records Bureau, the highest in a decade. Despite recent demonstrations and the implementation of an anti-rape ordinance, university student Manjusha Madhu hasn't seen much of a difference when it comes to women’s safety. “More and more cases of rape and sexual assault that are happening all over the country and it does not seem to have stopped, changed," Madhu says. "Nothing has seemed to have changed. So I think it’s important that all of us come back on the streets, raise our voices, and make sure that we are heard.”

Women’s rights activists like Kavita Krishnan of the All India Progressive Women's Association, who were pinning their hopes on lawmakers, have been disappointed so far. Krishnan believes proposed legislation in parliament falls short on the issues of police accountability and marital rape. “They are continuing to say that we can’t admit that marital rape happens, we can’t allow women to complain against their husband of marital rape," she says. "These are all things which cannot have a place in modern India. We have to oppose it. We are going to demand and win these changes in the law.”

Source

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Bitch, get your ass in the kitchen and bring me my fucking beer!

 

[waltky]

India gang-rape victim gets US courage award...

Indian gang-rape victim shares US courage awards
Sun, Mar 10, 2013 - The Indian gang-rape victim whose brutal death shocked the nation and the world was among nine women honored by the US on Friday for their courage.

The young student, who has become known simply as Nirbhaya, or “fearless,” was awarded the US International Women of Courage award posthumously after she died of massive internal injuries following the rape and attack on a Delhi bus. “Her bravery inspired millions of men and women to come together with a simple message ‘No more,’” US Secretary of State John Kerry told a ceremony at which the 23-year-old was honored. “We never imagined that the girl we thought was our daughter would one day be the daughter of the entire world,” her parents wrote in a message to the ceremony that was read out by Kerry. “While her end was horrendous, her case is imparting strength to all women to fight and to improve the system. Women in India and the rest of the world refuse to be stigmatized and will not keep silent any more.”

Three other women were also absent from the event held at the US Department of State. Tibetan poet Tsering Woeser was denied a passport by Chinese authorities to travel, Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan is under house arrest and Syrian human rights lawyer Razan Zeitunah is in hiding for her safety. US first lady Michelle Obama said that “when these women witnessed horrific crimes or the disregard for basic human rights, they spoke up, risking everything they had to see that justice was done.” “With every act of strength and defiance, with every blog post, with every community meeting, these women have inspired millions to stand with them and find their own voices, and work together to achieve real and lasting change,” she added.

However, the event was marred by news that the award to Egyptian activist Samira Ibrahim was canceled at the last minute after it was discovered she had made statements praising the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the killing of Israelis. “It’s unfortunate, but it was the right thing to do,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, adding that Ibrahim’s statements on her Twitter account “didn’t comport with our values.” “There were obviously some problems in our review process,” Nuland said. Woeser, who has written on Tibetan issues for decades, said she was unable to leave China to receive the award, after being routinely denied a passport. She had applied in 2005 and last year.

However, Woeser said she would dedicate her award to self-immolators. “I’ve been writing about them, and feel sad about them,” she said. Also among those honored were the first female member of the Afghan National Interdiction Unit, Malalai Bahaduri, whose uncle broke her nose when she told him she was going to pursue a career in law enforcement. Russian journalist Elena Milashina, who has endured threats and attacks for her work exposing drug traffickers and the killings of reporters, and Nigerian democracy campaigner Josephine Obiajulu Odumakin also got the nod. The final two awards were given to Somalian activist Fartuun Adan, who heads the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, and Honduran Julieta Castellanos, who helped formed an umbrella organization of civil society groups following the 2009 coup.

Indian gang-rape victim shares US courage awards - Taipei Times

 

[Katzndogz]

Women all over the world have something to say and something to fight. In America women are too busy watching The View.

 

[waltky]

The wheels of justice turn slowly in India...

Indian gang-rape victim may get justice - after 17 years
Sunday 14 April 2013 > Retrial ordered in case of girl raped by 40 men in 40 days

The Suryanelli girl goes to the office in the morning with her long, wavy hair neatly combed, packed lunch in hand, like a normal working woman in India. But once she leaves her front gate, she holds her body tight, with shoulders hunched and arms wrapped around her, and looks down. After all, a stranger at the bus stop might recognise her and point her out as the former 16-year-old who was raped by more than 40 men over more than 40 days. All but one of her attackers walked free, while it is the Suryanelli girl who might as well be in prison. For 17 years now, her life has been put on hold, frozen at that 1996 night. There has been no justice, no closure. Until, perhaps, now. The general silence on sexual violence gave way in December after a particularly vicious gang rape in a relatively smart part of the capital, New Delhi.

Tens of thousands of people mourned the death of a young university student brutally attacked with a metal bar. With the sudden spotlight on rape, the case of the Suryanelli girl was pulled out of cold storage, where it had languished for eight years. India's Supreme Court ordered a retrial to be completed in six months. It was on 16 January 1996, around midnight on a trip in rural Kerala, that she met a man and a woman. The man offered to take her to their house. Instead he took her to a nearby guesthouse and raped her. The next 42 days passed in a blur of beatings and rapes by a parade of strange men. She was taken to homes and hotels, in cars and public buses, driven more than 2,000 miles across two states. She was forced to drink liquor made from fermented coconut flowers, and was sedated with pills.

Her attackers included a retired professor, lawyers, businessmen, and government officials. When she resisted, the first man who raped her threatened to kill her parents. "I'm a lawyer," he told her, "I will never get caught for this." One man seemed older than the others, and she begged him for pity. "You are old enough to be my papa. Please rescue me from here." He raped her too. When she thought she would die, they gave her a little money and left her at a bus station. She took a bus straight to her father's post office. There she waited outside in silence. The memory of seeing his daughter that day is burned into his brain – her bloated body, her face covered in scratch marks. "When she left, she was a young girl in a school uniform. When she came back, she looked like a grown woman, her body puffy and swollen... I knew immediately what she had gone through."

They went to the local police, who tried to dissuade her from reporting the crime. It took two days to file the first report. The police took the girl and her father everywhere she had been forced to go, in a police van, like culprits – with several of the suspects. Every day was a humiliation. The police and the perpetrators seemed like friends, laughing and joking together. She was examined by a male gynaecologist. Rape victims in India generally have to undergo the so-called "two-finger test". Doctors probe the vagina to see if it is lax, the term commonly used, and if a hymen is absent. Both are taken as evidence the woman routinely has sex, so must have consented to intercourse. In the case of the Suryanelli girl, the doctor did not perform the two-finger test. He said her vagina was simply too damaged. It took three years for the case just to reach a court in India's overburdened justice system. The men said either that they had never even met her or that the sex was consensual. Some had minor links to a political party and claimed they were subject to a political vendetta.

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[waltky]

Indian cops don't seem to be too concerned...

Indian girl's rape highlights police apathy
Apr 22,`13 -- 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. Three days after the attack, the girl was found alone in locked room in the same New Delhi building where her family lives. 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.

The parents of the 5-year-old said that after their daughter disappeared, they repeatedly begged police to register a complaint and begin a search, but they were rejected. Three days later, neighbors heard the sound of a child crying from a locked room in the tenement. They broke down the door and rushed the brutalized girl to the police station. The parents said the police response was to offer the couple 2,000 rupees ($37) to keep quiet about what had happened. "They just wanted us to go away. They didn't want to register a case even after they saw how badly our daughter was injured," said the girl's father, who cannot be identified because Indian law requires a rape victim's identity be kept secret.

Delhi's Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar admitted Monday that local police had erred in handling the case. "There have been shortfalls, so the station house officer and his deputy have been suspended," Kumar told reporters. Other poor parents of missing children say they also have found police reluctant to help them. In 2010, police took 15 days to register a missing-persons case for 14-year-old Pankaj Singh. His mother is still waiting for him to come home. "Every day my husband and my father would go wait at the police station, but they would shoo them away," Pravesh Kumari Singh said as she sat on her son's bed, surrounded by his pictures and books.

One morning in March 2010, she fed her son a breakfast of fried pancakes and spicy potatoes, then left for a community health training program. "He told me he would have a bath and settle down to study for his exams," said Singh, clutching the boy's photograph to her heart. When she returned, he was gone. "The neighbors said some boys had called him out. We searched everywhere, went to the police, but they refused to believe that something had happened to our son." The police insisted he had run off with friends and would return, she said. "They said we must have scolded him or beaten him, which is why he had run away from home," she said.

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