Taking a stand for women’s rights

1. Taking a stand for women’s rights Profile: written by Tiffany Aardema

2. Progress toward equality: -Poor women gaining greater access to savings and credit mechanisms worldwide, due to microcredit -A dwindling number of countries that do not allow women to vote: including Bhutan, Lebanon, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and the Vatican City -Women gaining more positions in parliament throughout Africa. In many cases African countries have more women in parliament than some western ones. -A protocol to protect women’s rights in Africa that came into effect in 2005. -An almost universal ratification of the women’s rights treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. -Morocco gave women greater equality and protection of their human rights within marriage and divorce by passing a new family code in 2004. -India has accepted legal obligations to eliminate discrimination against women and outlawed sexual harassment in the workplace. -In Cameroon, the Convention is applied in local courts and groundbreaking decisions on gender equality are being made by the country’s high courts. But there is still so much to do…

3. Fatima, a Muslim woman, recounts her story of the injustices occurring in the middle east today: “There were six of them. They tied me to a chair and raped my young girl one by one. I could do nothing to save her,” Fatima said with tears welling up… yet they have chosen not to report the matter to the police. Living their lives in silence and fear is a method of less disrespect than speaking out for justice. “If the word spreads that my daughter was gang- raped, tell me who will marry her? She will be branded as dirty and thrown out of our community.” Lack of Progress:

4. Lack of progress: • Hena, a young girl of only fourteen years was a victim of rape. She was convicted guilty of having an affair with her cousin and her punishment for her crime was to receive 101 lashes. Her only real crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her tiny body couldn’t handle the pain of the lashes and she dropped to the floor after 70. • Hena’s cousin Mahbub Khan was her age and he would harass her on her commute to and from school-her father reported. Many months later, as Henas sister Alya told it- Hena was walking from her room to the toilet outside when Mahbub gagged her with a cloth, forced her behind a nearby shrubbery and raped and beat her. Mahbub’s wife heard the commotion and found her husband lying with his cousin. Then, Mahbub’s wife proceeded to beat Hena futher. • Henas death was determined by an autopsy as a suicide. • Mahbub Khan was sentenced to 201 lashes but miraculously managed to walk away after just a few lashes. • All that was said in regards to Hena and her injustice was “What happened to Hena is unfortunate and we all have to be ashamed that we couldn’t save her life.” • Darbesh Khan (pictured above) was Hena Akhters father. He and his wife had to witness the horrible spectacle of his daughter receive 70 lashes for her alleged affair with her cousin.

5. Lack of progress: • Four women are raped every five minutes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. • “They rape a woman, five or six of them at a time—but that is not enough. Then they shoot a gun into her vagina. In all my years here, I never saw anything like it... To see so many raped, that shocks me, but what shocks me more is the way they are raped.”-Dr. Denis Mukwege • “My husband and I were sleeping in our house. The children were sleeping in the house next door. The soldiers arrived and brought my daughter to our house where they raped her in the presence of my husband and me. Afterwards they demanded that my husband rape my daughter but he refused so they shot him. Then they went into the other house where they found my three sons. They killed all three of my boys. After killing them, two soldiers raped me one after the other.” –The Oxford Family Report • “Four men took me. They all raped me. At that time, I was 9 months’ pregnant. They gang-raped me and pushed sticks up my vagina.- That’s when my baby died.- They said it was better than killing me.” – One woman interviewed by the BBC

6. Let us make our world a better, brighter place to live: • The cases of these women are not uncommon. The Koran justifies acts of rape by passing laws that are unjust: For women to prove rape in Pakistan, for example, four adult males of “impeccable” character must witness the penetration, in accordance with Shari’a.” • For the rape victims in the Congo, the soldiers use rape as a means to place fear into the citizens and enforce respect, to control births and to protect their soldiers. The soldiers believe that raping these women will provide them with the strength they need in order to win their battles. • Mistreatment of any individual, male or female is unacceptable. Equality and fair treatment for all is something that is achievable and we should all strive for. I would like to see injustices like these disappear within our world.I want to be proud of the world I live in and to be in awe at human kindness and compassion, and not human cruelty and mistreatment.

7. Sources: • Rape Victims Suffer in Silence After Riots in India http://tribune.com.pk/story/616107/rape-victims- suffer-in-silence-after-india-notes Only 14, Bangladeshi Girl charged with adultery was lashed to death http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/aslapcf/03/29/Bangladesh.lashing.death Democratic Republic of Congo http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/conflicts/profile/democratic-rebublic-of-congo The Women of Islam http://content.time.com/time/printout/0881618564700.html Women’s Rights http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/166