Women and violence

WIN News, Autumn, 2002

A 19 page report Violence and Sexual Exploitation: the Experience of Refugee Children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported testimonies of children registered by a visit of 40 days undertaken last year in West Africa and by a Mission by the Human Rights Commission to evaluate progress. Two experts of the UN who visited 14 areas of conflict were shocked by the widespread violence against women before, during and after the conflict. They heard horrible testimonies of the violence and sexual assaults against women and the impunity with which these crimes are committed.

The reports of the two women - Ellen Johnson and Sirleaf and Elisabeth Rehn will be published in October due to on important resolution of the Security Council on Women, Peace and Security.

Noeleen Heyzer director of UNIFEM told the Security Council that there is 'insufficient protection of women' provided. There are no women included in the Peace Keeping forces personnel and insufficient resources said Heyzer.

Finally, since 1999, the UN Mission to Bosnia started an operation against trafficking of women including operations against bars and bordellos and they interviewed more than 1,400 women offering them assistance with repatriation. The mission to Kosovo has taken measures to protect victims."

USA: EPIDEMIC OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND WIFE ASSAULT

THE FEMINIST MAJORITY FOUNDATION, Feminist Daily News Wire, Aug. 27, 2002

1600 Wilson Blvd., Suite 801, Arlington, VA 22209

"A Philadelphia judge took a stand against domestic violence recently when he sentenced a man to 11-22 years in prison for the all too common crime of assaulting his wife. Common Pleas Court Judge Rayford Means gave Darryl Blackwell the maximum possible sentence for 12 misdemeanors. Typically, such misdemeanors garner sentences of no longer than two years.

Domestic violence and intimate partner violence remain on epidemic in the United States. According to a Department of. Justice study released in October 2001, close to one-third of women in the US who are murdered each year are killed by their husband. Approximately 1 million women annually report being stalked. In 1999, more than 85 percent of the 800,000 reports of intimate partner violence were committed against women."

NIGERIA: MUSLIM JUSTICE- MORE STONING SENTENCES OF WOMEN

THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE, Sept. 15, 2002

"When her time to die comes, convicted adulteress Amina Lawal will be buried up to her neck in sand. When only her head remains exposed, those watching will be invited to throw stones until the 30-year-old single mother is dead.

'As they throw, the muslim men will be calling 'God is great',' court official Ibrahim Abdullahi says, outlining procedure for the first in a sudden string of executions by stoning in Nigeria's Islamic northern states.

Lawal and others of a growing number of men and women on Nigeria's Shariah death row have emerged as pawns in a political battle for power in Nigeria...

The rush in Nigeria's north to impose the harshest possible sentences under Islamic law - newly adopted by a dozen states - has laid bare the split between Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.