After a Devastating Birth Injury, Hope
By Denise Grady, for The New York Times, February 24, 2009
Dodoma, Tanzania — Lying side by side on a narrow bed, talking and giggling and poking each other with skinny elbows, they looked like any pair of teenage girls trading jokes and secrets.
But the bed was in a crowded hospital ward, and between the moments of laughter, Sarah Jonas, 18, and Mwanaidi Swalehe, 17, had an inescapable air of sadness. Pregnant at 16, both had given birth in 2007 after labor that lasted for days. Their babies had died, and the prolonged labor had inflicted a dreadful injury on the mothers: an internal wound called a fistula, which left them incontinent and soaked in urine.
Last month at the regional hospital in Dodoma, they awaited expert surgeons who would try to repair the damage. For each, two previous, painful operations by other doctors had failed. more,,,
Human Slavery Is Thriving in the Shadows
By Mirela Xanthaki, IPS News, Posted in Alternet.org, February 23, 2009,
United Nations, Feb 13 -- "Dora", a young Mexican woman, was helped by another Mexican woman to cross the U.S. border in the promise of a good job there. She ended up in Texas, working in a sweatshop and not allowed to go out or even take a shower.
"Sandra" was sold as a child for 400 dollars to a pedophile, who repeatedly raped her for four years...more...
A Promise of Reform in Saudi Arabia
Editorial of The New York Times, February 26, 2009
Saudi Arabia is notoriously change-averse, but four years after assuming the crown, King Abdullah may finally be ready to fulfill his promise to lead his country toward greater tolerance and modernity.
We welcome his decision to name several reformers to top posts in his government — and his even more surprising decision to oust certain hard-line leaders of the country’s powerful religious establishment. We hope it means that Saudi Arabia will soon grant full civil and legal rights to women and all who reside in the kingdom.
Most of the attention has centered on the king’s appointment of the first female deputy minister, who will focus on women’s education. That is an important first step. But there is still a very long way to go before women have anything approaching equality. more...
Genital mutilation: Women fight Africa's taboo
By Katrina Manson in Sierra Leone for The Independent, UK, February 27, 2009
* They broke the silence from tribal elders and politicians – but paid a high personal price for trying to protect millions of young girls from the knife
The female journalist was snatched by members of a secret society, forcibly stripped and made to parade naked through the streets. It might sound like an atrocity from the time when Sierra Leone was ripped apart by a bloody civil war, but in fact the public humiliation was exacted in the diamond-rich eastern town of Kenema just this month. The woman's alleged crime was reporting on female genital mutilation...more...
Afghan Women Slowly Gaining Protection
By Kirk Semple for The New York Times, March 3, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan — Mariam was 11 in 2003 when her parents forced her to marry a blind, 41-year-old cleric. The bride price of $1,200 helped Mariam’s father, a drug addict, pay off a debt.
Mariam was taken to live with her new husband and his mother, who, she says, treated her like a servant. They began to beat her when she failed to conceive a child. After two years of abuse, she fled and sought help at a police station in Kabul. ..more...
For Many Iraqi Women and Girls, 'Internally Displaced' Means Homeless
By Dahr Jamail, for IPS News, published by Alternet.org, Posted on February 24, 2009,
Baghdad, (IPS) -- "We only want a normal life," says Um Qasim, sitting in a bombed out building in Baghdad. She and others around have been saying that for years.
Um Qasim lives with 13 family members in a brick shanty on the edge of a former military intelligence building in the Mansoor district of Baghdad.
Five of her children are girls. Homelessness is not easy for anyone, but it is particularly challenging for women and girls.
"Me and my girls have to be extra careful living this way," Um Qasim told IPS. "We are tired of always being afraid, because any day, any time, strange men walk through our area, and there is no protection for us. Each day brings a new threat to us, and all the women here."..more...
Woman Who Recruited Female Suicide Bombers Arrested
By Deborah Haynes for The Times of London UK, posteded in Alternet.org, on February 4, 2009,
* Samira Ahmed Jassim claims to have arranged the rapes of her recruits, then persuaded them to blow themselves up.
A middle-aged woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has been arrested in Iraq, a senior officer said today.
Samira Ahmed Jassim, 51, confessed to sending 28 of the women to carry out attacks, Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi, a Baghdad security spokesman, said. She was captured at an undisclosed location a fortnight ago.
He played a video of her apparent confession at a news conference.
Jassim, dressed in traditional black Islamic robes, is shown appearing to confess to recruiting and training women to become human bombs..more...
Former nun tells of sex and suffering inside Indian convent
* Catholic Church stung by autobiography recounting harassment and abuse
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi, for The Insdependent, UK, 20 February 2009
A former nun's tell-all story which details illicit relationships, sexual harassment and bullying in the convent where she spent three decades is causing ructions in the Catholic Church in the south Indian state of Kerala.
In Amen – an autobiography of a nun, Sister Jesme says when she became a nun she discovered priests were forcing novices to have sex with them. There were also secret homosexual relationships among the nuns and at one point she was forced into such a relationship by another nun who told her she preferred this kind of arrangement as it ruled out the possibility of pregnancy. ..more..
The Purpose-Driven Wife
* Teaching women to submit to their husbands, for the love of Christ.
By Kathryn Joyce for Mother Jones, March/April 2009
I first encounter "teacher and exhorter" Martha Peace at a Sunday-school hall on the campus of the First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, an 8,000-person megachurch in this verdant Atlanta suburb. Spacious enough to host its own congregation, the hall is flanked by embroidered banners bearing shields, birds, and crowns. The evening's emcee, Leanne, a peppy blonde with frosty blue eye shadow, says they represent the virtues of the nearly 120 women who came to see Peace speak as part of the church's "Women of Purpose" series. As daughters of the king of kings, Leanne explains, all Christian women wear crowns. But with that honor comes a mandate to apply their faith at home...more...
Primer and Show on Women Who Loved and Created Art
By Benjamin Genocchio, for The New York Times, March 1, 2009
Founded in New York in 1889 as the Woman’s Art Club, the National Association of Women Artists was one of several organizations initiated in the late 19th century to advance the cause and careers of women. Today it is the country’s oldest continuing women’s art organization.
In 1992, the association decided to donate its collection of around 200 works by its artist members, spanning the late 19th century to today, to the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. Many of the best pieces have been on display in the museum’s permanent collection rooms over the past two decades, as regular visitors know, but until now there’s never been a concentrated showing of works from the association’s gift.
“A Parallel Presence: National Association of Women Artists, 1889-2009” comprises work by about 60 artists; much of it is drawn from the collection, with the rest, mostly historical material, on loan from public and private lenders. It is a handsome and thoughtful show that will travel to the UBS Art Gallery in New York later this year...more..
Women of Wall Street, on the street.
By Kate Harding for Salon. com, Friday, February 27, 2009
In the cover story of the March 16 Forbes, "Terminated: Why the Women of Wall Street are disappearing," Anita Raghavan paints a damning picture of sexism in the financial industry, which you'd think might have learned its lesson after paying out over $400 million dollars in settlements of sexual harassment cases. This time, the discrimination against women is manifesting in the form of disproportionate layoffs...more..
Texas: The state of sex (mis)education
By Tracy Clark-Flory for Salon. Com, February 27, 2009
I wish this were a bad joke -- the unfair caricature of Texas that you might see on a Prius' bumper sticker -- but it isn't: A whopping 94 percent of school districts in the Lone Star State teach only abstinence, according to a new report. Worse yet, the review by two professors at Texas State University found that "sexuality education materials" used in the state "regularly contain factual errors and perpetuate lies and distortions about condoms and STDs." They also found that classes promoted gender stereotypes, sexual orientation biases, shame and fear. Oh, what fun! ..more...
Rep. Tauscher to introduce bill overturning 'don't ask don't tell'This afternoon, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) will introduce legislation to overturn the military's ban on gay service members. She will speak about the legislation at the Center for American Progress Action Fund today with Ret. Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Alva -- the first American wounded in the war in Iraq who has since come out and now advocates against the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. In a new article on the cost of the military's gay ban, CAP Senior Fellow Larry Korb notes that since 1994, the ban has resulted in the dismissal of more than 13,000 military personnel across the services, "including approximately 800 with skills deemed 'mission critical,' such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists." Support for gay people in the military has grown dramatically, with 75 percent of Americans now in support, up from 62 percent in 2001 and 44 percent in 1993. In January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said President Obama is "committed to following through" on his promise to end the ban on gay servicemen. When asked whether Obama would overturn DADT, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied, "[Y]ou don't hear a politician give a one-word answer much. But it's, 'Yes.'"
Former CAP staffer and Deputy White House Counsel Cassandra Butts has been chosen to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "which has been beset by shrinking staff, plummeting morale and a growing backlog of job discrimination cases to investigate." Butts "would provide a much-needed spark" to the commission.
Whatever happened to the femme fatale?
* Sultry, smouldering temptresses lit up the screen in cinema's golden age – but where are they now?
By Sheila Johnston for The Independent, UK, 27 February 2009
They came prowling out of the shadows, wreathed in smoke, wisecracks and stolen mink; women no better than they should be, with only trouble in mind. They never needed to diet, displayed but a flickering interest in men for money, power and meaningless sex, and were more likely to accessorise with a gun than a Chihuahua...more...
ESPAÑOL
México: Complicidad oficial en trata de niños
* Autoridades protegen a la secta Los Perfectos, acusan defensores de víctimas de Casitas del Sur
Por Sanjuana Martínez para La Jornada, México, febrero 28, 2009
Los casos de niños desaparecidos en CAIFAC Monterrey, Nuevo León; Casitas del Sur, en el Distrito Federal, y La Casita en Cancún, Quintana Roo, muestran la existencia de una red nacional de trata de menores con fines de explotación sexual o tráfico de órganos, afirmó en entrevista Alicia Leal, presidenta fundadora de la organización no gubernamental Alternativas Pacíficas, quien asumió la defensa de las víctimas en la capital nuevoleonesa e investigó la desaparición de menores en las otras dos casas hogar... màs
Sufre abuso emocional severo una de cada tres mexicanas: UNAM
Por Laura Poy Solano para La Jornada, México, marzo 1 , 2009
Muchas, y en menor proporción hombres, viven con parejas donde la violencia es constante
La mayoría no sabe qué es una relación saludable, destaca experto de la Facultad de Sicología
En la Endereh 2006, de cada 100 mujeres de 15 años y más, 43 dijeron haber vivido alguna agresión
Se estima que en México una de cada tres mujeres ha sido sometida a abuso emocional severo, y de ellas, al menos 10 por ciento enfrenta una agresión grave, señalaron especialistas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), quienes advirtieron que muchas, y en menor proporción hombres, están inmersas en relaciones de abuso y maltrato constante...más...
DESDE SEMILAC: La agencia de noticias SEMlac comparte con usted, de manera gratuita, los documentos de su Archivo Digital en constante actualización. Puede solicitar los materiales de su interés a nuestro correo semcuba@ceniai.inf.cu
Cine
Nuevo espacio para la mujer y el audiovisual contemporáneo
Por Sara Más
Acercarse a los audiovisuales que abordan los conflictos de las mujeres en el mundo, actualmente, es el propósito fundamental de un nuevo sitio en Internet desarrollado por la Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, con sede en La Habana. Con el apoyo financiero de la Agencia española de cooperación internacional para el desarrollo (AECID) y la colaboración de la Cátedra de Audiovisual y Género de la Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión, este proyecto busca profundizar en la obra de mujeres realizadoras y también en el tratamiento de los temas que atañen a las mujeres en el audiovisual contemporáneo...más..
Perú
Película revive debate sobre violencia sexual durante subversión
Por Zoraida Portillo
La premiación con el Oso de Oro de Berlín de la película peruana La teta asustada dará pie -cuando se estrene en Lima- a un debate muchas veces soslayado en el país: el de registro y reparación para las mujeres que sufrieron violencia sexual durante el conflicto armado que asoló el Perú en la década de los ochenta, en opinión de los observadores...más..
Perú
Educación a niñas y adolescentes rurales, una inversión necesaria
Por Julia Vicuña Yacarine
Un Estado que no educa adecuadamente a las niñas y adolescentes rurales deja de percibir, en el futuro, importantes beneficios sociales. Esa es una de las conclusiones de un estudio presentado en audiencia pública en el Congreso de la República por la Mesa de Mujeres Parlamentarias Peruanas y el Movimiento Manuela Ramos...más...
República Dominicana
Revive polémica sobre aborto con "Las hijas de nadie"
Por Mirta Rodríguez Calderón
Con un libro conmovedor y científicamente ilustrativo de las tragedias que viven las mujeres en este país, donde las interrupciones de embarazo están penalizadas, la doctora Lilliam Fondeur colocó al alcance de la sociedad dominicana una obra que podría incidir en los debates que muy pronto se iniciarán sobre la reforma constitucional. En el proyecto a debatir se conserva el artículo 30, donde se condena a las mujeres a parir, puedan o no deban, quieran o no quieran...más...
DESDE CIMAC
Evaluación educativa estandarizada desconoce diversidad de género
Docentes, investigadoras e investigadores de 13 países y de organismos gremiales del continente americano expresaron su preocupación por el retraso en materia educativa, a partir de un modelo impuesto desde hace tiempo por organismos financieros, bajo una perspectiva neoliberal que daña y lastima a las personas.
BREVES
No al "paraíso sexual" / Convocan al Premio Sor Juana Inés/
Género y empleo a debate / Las que migran
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