WMC Women Under Siege
June 18, 2014 International, Violence against women
Siege talks to BBC about the UK summit: ‘Listen to the grassroots organizers’
The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, which ended on June 13, has now been met with both criticism and praise throughout the media. Our director, Lauren Wolfe, spoke to the BBC’s Radio Scotland from London, where she was a delegate at the summit. She has a mixed take.
WMC Women Under Siege
June 17, 2014 | Amelia Hoover Green | International, Violence against women
Ignoring the evidence at the End Sexual Violence in Conflict summit
The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict ended, for me, not with a bang but with a tiny symbol of my irrelevance. As I stood, furiously tweeting, after the summit’s closing plenary, I was literally pushed aside by a bodyguard to Angelina Jolie. (Special Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Jolie was a co-host of the summit, with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.)
WMC Women Under Siege
June 15, 2014 | Jody Williams | International, Violence against women
UK summit on sexualized violence: ‘A time warp in the wrong direction’
I spent the past week in London at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict hosted by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie. It was a historic gathering of ministers and other government representatives, UN officials, the ICRC, and civil society, including our Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict.
WMC Women Under Siege
June 11, 2014 | Lauren Wolfe | International, Violence against women
Do we really need Angelina Jolie?
Everyone keeps asking me if we need Angelina Jolie. Leading up to the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, which Jolie and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague are chairing in London this week, they want to know whether she is useful to this cause. I’ve been thinking a lot about this and have been searching for an answer. And I think I’ve found it.
WMC Women Under Siege
June 10, 2014 | Megan Riesz | International, Violence against women
Stigma remains in place as sexualized violence increases in CAR
The Central African Republic may have a new leader for now—Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza was sworn in in January—but there are still old problems that exist when it comes to the country’s long history of sexualized violence.
WMC Women Under Siege
June 03, 2014 | Kerry K. Paterson | Science and tech, Violence against women
Safety a click away: The tech industry’s response to violence against women
To combat sexualized violence, advocates and technologists have created new, tech-based apps and services in recent years. Some recent anti-rape device creations include rape-resistant underwear, female condoms with teeth, hairy leg tights, and even “killer tampons.” But not all of the creations are that bizarre. Some tech-based responses include smartphone apps, GPS tools, and other personal safety services and software that may be useful in the right—or wrong—situation.
WMC Women Under Siege
May 20, 2014 | Shazdeh Omari | International, Violence against women
Rape is being used as tool of ethnic violence in South Sudan
In what experts are calling the single worst atrocity since fighting broke out in South Sudan last December, hundreds of men, women, and children were killed last month when rebels seized the northern oil town of Bentiu. The rebels denied the allegations, saying it was retreating government troops who perpetrated the murders. Then, fighters took to radio airwaves—the means by which most South Sudanese citizens access news—and broadcast “hate messages” calling on men to rape women.
WMC Women Under Siege
May 14, 2014 | Chagmion Antoine | Girls, International, Violence against women
Abduction of schoolgirls highlights Nigeria’s booming sex trafficking industry
On April 14, nearly 300 Nigerian girls were abducted from their dormitories in a school in the northeastern town of Chibok. But this is hardly the first time Nigerian children have been kidnapped en masse for the purposes of sex—in fact, Nigeria is the birthplace of a sex-trafficking pipeline that leads directly to Italy.
WMC Women Under Siege
May 09, 2014 | Reem Abdellatif | Girls, International, Violence against women
Exposing the secret of domestic abuse in Egypt
It wasn’t easy growing up as a teenage Muslim girl, with a father who thought he owned your body just because he put a roof over your head or food on the table. Not just that—this was a Muslim man who perverted the teachings of his own religion to justify the sexual abuse that he inflicted upon me, his own daughter.
WMC Women Under Siege
May 08, 2014 Girls, International, Violence against women
Siege talks to BBC about why sexualized violence against women is under-reported

With the story of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by an extremist group in Nigeria hot in the news, we spoke to the BBC about why coverage of such violence against women and girls in conflict is so sporadic—and what can be done to make a lasting difference once and for all in the media and in the lives of those affected around the world.

WMC Women Under Siege
May 02, 2014 | Lauren Wolfe | International, Violence against women
The Index: Justice for Rape in War
Year in which General Andrew Jackson is credited with coining the phrase “booty and beauty” to make clear what kind of “spoils…to the victor go”: 1812 ... Year in which an international tribunal established that sexualized violence is a crime against humanity and potentially an act of genocide: 1995 ...
WMC Women Under Siege
April 22, 2014 | Priyali Sur | International, Violence against women
A Delhi street where sex workers are forgotten
With painted faces and shiny clothes, almost every day of their lives these women are forced to sell themselves for sex. Their work and lives are at the bottom of everyone’s concern, but they are still tied to Garstin Bastion Road—commonly known as GB Road—Delhi’s biggest red light area, which lies at the center of a busy commercial corner of the capital.
WMC Women Under Siege
April 11, 2014 | Jocelyn Brooks | Gender-based violence, International, Violence against women
‘Everybody knew who testified’: Can disguises work for rape survivors?

A woman sits, microphone in hand, behind a billowing, black curtain—further obscured by a black veil that hides her face, her body, and even her hands—as she finds the courage to recount her rape by government soldiers in Minova, Democratic Republic of Congo.

WMC Women Under Siege
April 10, 2014 | Leta Hong Fincher | International, Violence against women
‘The system is designed to make you give up’: An American tackles domestic violence in China
Kim Lee met Li Yang on a trip to China in 1999, when he was lecturing about “Crazy English,” a way of learning the language that involved overcoming inhibitions through shouting slogans such as “Conquer English to Make China Stronger!”
WMC Women Under Siege
April 07, 2014 | Chagmion Antoine | International, Violence against women
Where sisterhood ends: The victim in your own home
When the case of a 23-year-old Indonesian domestic worker made international headlines, readers were shocked to hear of the physical abuse that left the once vibrant young woman nearly disabled. But just as shocking to the international community was the subsequent revelation that her employer—a 40-year-old mother of two—had been charged with the attacks.
More In WMC Women Under Siege
Archive