Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

On Thursday April 21, 2011 the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued a decision in the case of gang rape survivor Mukhtar Mai. Mukhtar Mai was gang raped on the orders of a village council in June 2002 when her brother was wrongly accused of having an affair with a woman from a rival gang.

Mrs. Olushola Akai is the Executive Director of Ajegunle Community Project (ACP), based in Olodi-Apapa, Lagos State. She is a woman with a golden heart, who has been at the forefront in fighting for rights of women and the girl-child in Nigeria for so many years. She frowns on the high rate of gender-based violence and discrimination against women and the girl-child in the society.

The USM Campus Safety Project organized a week of events to call attention to domestic violence and sexual assault, including a Take Back the Night march on the Gorham campus Wednesday and a display of people's experiences and feelings about domestic and sexualized violence on t-shirts hung in Gorham.

About thirty people gathered in Hastings Formal Lounge in Gorham for a rally Wednesday evening before marching.

Haitian feminist Yolette's Jeanty‘s name may not ring a bell, but her tireless work has been rightfully recognized recently. As executive director of Kay Fanm (in Kreyol, House of Women)–an organization whose mission is to fight for social justice and women's rights–Jeanty has been an advocate and supporter of women and girls for decades.

It's a problem nearly every woman in the Egyptian capital has experienced — leering, whistles, groping or other sexual harassment on Cairo's thoroughfares and backalleys. Soon they'll be able to instantly speak out on the Internet when it happens.

Even as the Arab spring unfolds across the region, I learned with profound astonishment that Mr. Jack Persekian, director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, has been dismissed as “punishment” for allowing an artist invited to the Sharjah Biennial total freedom of expression. I am the artist in question.

Every day, misogyny kills women around the globe in two ways: directly through violence and indirectly through apathy, said David A. Grimes, MD, clinical professor of ob-gyn at University School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, who delivered his lecture "Misogyny and Women's Health" today at The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' 59th Annual Clinical Meeting.

Blue jeans will be the style of the day today as Southland residents take part in Denim Day in LA & USA, a campaign to raise awareness about rape and sexual violence.

My Sunday column looks at human trafficking — but in America. This is a subject I've written about a good deal in Cambodia, India, Pakistan and elsewhere abroad, and there's sometimes a tendency to think that the problem just exists overseas, or just among foreign women smuggled in the the U.S. It's true that the worst places in the world for forced prostitution maybe Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Burma, and so on.

Merely reporting on violence against women cannot put an end to this “heinous crime”. Instead, changing mindsets and the social outlook of people can help make a big difference.