WMC Women Under Siege
Rape accounts still surface from India’s partition 65 years on
War stories are often framed by convenient lines, two clear-cut sides, campaigns and directives. Partition in India reads very differently. In the aftermath of the 1947 declaration of Indian independence, the roughly drawn new state boundaries triggered what may have been the biggest migration in human history.
WMC FBomb
The Indomitable Female Fortress: Queen Elizabeth I
When I think of Elizabeth I, Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, I think of a beguiling and Machiavellian woman who, against all odds, led her country to a golden age while battling against the acute ...
WMC Women Under Siege
'Take your portion': A victim speaks out about rape in Syria
Alma Abdulrahman is lying gaunt and unable to move anything below her diaphragm in a hospital bed in Amman. Some bedsores have become so deep she’s having surgery tomorrow. Screws hold together her upper vertebrae, and cigarette burns pock her right shoulder. Her voice fades in and out, hoarse from either weakness or morphine.
WMC Women Under Siege
The G8’s PR strategy on rape in conflict
On the same day in April that I listened to the harrowing stories of Syrian women over endless glasses of tea in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, leaders of the world’s eight richest countries promised to take action against rape as a weapon of war. But the high-profile statement failed to offer a deadline, measurable metric, or concrete plan for a single recommendation it put forward.
WMC Women Under Siege
Nicaraguan women could be forced into mediation with their attackers
In June 2012, a Nicaraguan law aimed at protecting women from gender-based violence took effect. Called Law 779, it “stipulates that the state and its institutions have a duty to guarantee the physical, psychic, moral, sexual, patrimonial, and economic integrity of women,” Inter Press Service reports. But since last year, the law has been jeopardized by opponents, including the vice president of the country’s Supreme Court.
WMC Women Under Siege
Mali conflict is latest to employ forced marriage as tool of war
Saran Keïta Diakité painted a dismal reality for women in Mali in a speech she gave to the UN Security Council in April. “They carry out a form of ‘marriage’ so that, at night, you can be treated as a sexual slave,” Diakité said. “During the day, you are there to serve tea to the men and attend to their every need. This is why I always say that what’s happened in Mali is unprecedented."
WMC Women Under Siege
Tracking a rumor: Is there a sugar factory in Syria being used as a rape house?
We were seated on a scratchy nylon mat with “UNHCR” written all over it. Children with the same beautiful, olive-complexioned face stared big-eyed at me from every corner of the furniture-less room, and their mother cried as she talked about the many massacres her family had fled in Homs five months previously.
WMC FBomb
Forced Prostitution During World War II
I recently read an article posted on Yahoo News about prostitution during World War II in Japan. Prostitution is a difficult and controversial subject for feminists, but what most can agree on is tha...
WMC Women Under Siege
The long struggle against systematic rape in conflict-ridden Kashmir
Just a few weeks ago, some 50 Kashmiri women came together to demand that police reinvestigate a well-known case of mass rape. The women—teachers, students, journalists, human rights workers, lawyers, and other professionals—filed a public interest litigation case before India’s Jammu and Kashmir high court. The alleged set of crimes, known as the Kunan Poshpora case, happened more than 20 years ago, on February 23, 1991, when armed forces allegedly raped at least 32 teenaged, adult, and elderly women.
WMC News & Features
African Women Lead: A Pan African Dream
Africans cannot sacrifice democracy for economic gain for the few and pittance for the many. The author—a New Yorker born in Nairobi—says paternalistic male leadership must come to an end, and women lead instead.
WMC Women Under Siege
The legacy of silence: Why we ignore the rape of women from Guatemala to Syria
Just before 2 a.m. and nearly half a world away, I watched a guilty verdict from Guatemala scroll by tweet by tweet on my phone. Former President Efrain Rios Montt was convicted on May 10 of genocide and crimes against humanity and given 80 years in prison. As the news came through, I felt a satisfied chill—17 years after the murder of 200,000 Guatemalans and the rape of 100,000 women, mostly Mayans, justice has actually come in our lifetime.
WMC News & Features
The Power of Mothers: A History of Disappearance
In Juárez, mothers of disappeared and murdered daughters from the last two decades are following in a long tradition of Latin American mothers who have taken to the streets to protest the disappearance of their children.
WMC Women Under Siege
From Morocco to Denmark: Rape survivors around the world are forced to marry attackers
In March 2012, a 16-year-old girl named Amina Filali killed herself by drinking rat poison. She had been raped and forced—by Moroccan law—to marry the man who had raped her.
WMC Women Under Siege
Lack of clean water tied to rape in the Solomon Islands
On any given day, women around the world will find themselves in danger of rape while performing the most basic acts of survival. Acts borne of necessity, such as fetching clean water for cooking or washing, or gathering firewood, often leave women vulnerable to rape and gender-based violence as they are forced to venture to remote areas. In the Solomon Islands, the problem is severe.
WMC News & Features
Delivering the News—Ghana’s "Maternal Health Channel"
Expectant mothers and their caregivers in Ghana can now look to the airwaves for critically important information.
WMC Women Under Siege
A needed controversy over sexualized violence in Democratic Republic of Congo
In August 2010, reports began trickling out of Democratic Republic of Congo about another tragic episode of mass sexualized violence perpetrated by rebel troops over four days in the eastern town of Luvungi. But in a recent issue of Foreign Policy, a debate sprang up about the way outsiders have portrayed the attack. The controversy highlights the need for a more candid discussion about Congo.
WMC News & Features
Yangon Bakehouse Empowers Women of Myanmar
As the people of Myanmar celebrate their new year beginning April 12, a handful of Myanmar women are beginning a new life thanks to an expat run social venture called The Yangon Bakehouse.
WMC Women Under Siege
Report: Sexualized violence may disproportionately affect children in war
“They didn’t hit her, but they ruined her.” That’s how a young woman named Maimouna described the gang rape of her 16-year-old neighbor in Mali, according to a new report from Save the Children. The NGO has transcribed interviews with witnesses such as Maimouna and with dozens of firsthand survivors to illustrate their latest findings.
WMC News & Features
Satire is a Dangerous Business in Venezuela
With national elections looming, the health of Venezuelan democracy may depend on the freedom of opinion in the media—including the political cartoonists.
WMC FBomb
On the media coverage of the Steubenville and Delhi Rape Cases
Over the past several months, two rape cases have received widespread media attention. While the media could have used these cases as an opportunity to educate people and condemn the crime of rape, th...
WMC Women Under Siege
April 03, 2013 | Lauren Wolfe |
Disability,
International,
Violence against women,
WMC Loreen Arbus Journalism Program
Syria has a massive rape crisis
All across the war-torn country, regime soldiers are said to be sexually violating women and men from the opposition, destroying families and, in some cases, claiming lives.
WMC FBomb
April 02, 2013 | Chelsea L |
Body image and body standards,
Feminism,
International,
Media,
Religion
On Witnessing Beautiful, Real Bodies
I recently spent two weeks traveling with a group in Morocco and was fortunate enough to have the experience of going to a hammam. A hammam is a type of spa where women and men (separately) go once a ...
WMC News & Features
Mentoring the Next Generation of Writers
Girls Write Now, in the midst of its annual CHAPTERS readings now in New York City, sponsors pairings that can seem at first surprising via its afterschool arts program.
WMC Women Under Siege
Now in their 80s and 90s, aging WWII sex slaves haven’t forgotten
It’s a euphemism we still haven’t shaken. “Comfort women” refers to the women and girls—usually foreign, from countries like Korea, the Philippines, and China—forced by the Japanese military to do sex work mainly during World War II.
WMC News & Features
March 29, 2013 | Shazia Z. Rafi |
Economy,
Education,
Girls,
International,
Politics,
Race/Ethnicity,
Religion,
Violence against women
Pakistan—The Last Destination of the Stars
The author, fresh from a family visit, reflects on how Pakistan arrived at this moment, and what the United States can do to support women and democracy there.