Kidnapped, raped, wed against their will: Kyrgyz women’s fight against a brutal tradition

From The Guardian:

Aisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.

“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.”

image by Tatyana Zelenskaya

The man who kidnapped her would soon become her husband. At the wedding, Aisuluu discovered that she was not even the woman he had intended to kidnap for marriage. But in the haste of having to return home with a bride and after wandering the streets all afternoon, the man decided to settle for the first “cute girl” he saw.

This was 1996, and Aisuluu was a teenager. Today she has four children by her kidnapper-turned-husband, to whom she is still married.

Known as ala kachuu (“take and run”), the brutal practice of kidnapping brides has its roots in medieval times along the steppes of Central Asia, yet persists to this day. It has been banned in Kyrgyzstan for decades and the law was tightened in 2013, with sentences of up to 10 years in prison for those who kidnap a woman to force her into marriage (previously it was a fine of 2,000 soms, worth about $25).

read more here @ The Guardian

Taliban death squads ‘trawl porn sites to compile kill list of Afghan prostitutes after US withdrawal'

From the US Sun:

Taliban death squads are trawling porn sites to compile a kill list of Afghan prostitutes and are putting names to faces of brothel workers who have been filmed having sex during the 20-year allied occupation of Afghanistan.

Security sources told The Sun Online that videos featuring Afghan prostitutes have made their way onto niche porn sites and have been discovered by the jihadis.

Our source said the Taliban are now “hell-bent” on “hunting down” the prostitutes to publicly execute or “humiliate for their own pleasure”.

They added the women face being gang-raped by the terror nuts before being “beheaded, stoned or hung”.

Some of the videos allegedly feature the women having sex with Westerners - further raising the fury of the Taliban.

Women are expected to face the most vicious and brutal repression under the new Taliban regime, with strict new rules and morality codes expected to erase them from public life.

“The Taliban are displaying the height of hypocrisy with this horrific witch-hunt," a source said.

read more here @ US Sun

In India, Muslim women advertised for 'sale' on the 'Sulli Deals' app defy trolls who tried to silence them

From CNN: In India, Muslim women advertised for 'sale' on the 'Sulli Deals' app defy trolls who tried to silence them 

Hana Mohsin Khan says she knows why she was targeted on a website that appeared to offer her for sale.   "(It's) because of my religion. Because I am Muslim," she said.

In early July, the 32-year-old pilot and proud feminist was among more than 80 Muslim women -- journalists, writers and influencers -- whose photos were posted on a mock app called Sulli Deals, a derogatory term for Muslim women typically used by right-wing Hindu men.

Users were offered a chance to "buy" the women like commodities in an auction -- and while the women weren't actually for sale, they say it left them scared, traumatized and angry.

Two months later, the site has been taken down by US-based platform GitHub, but the women are still angry none its creators have been detained or arrested. They say the lack of action highlights the discrimination Muslim women face in Hindu-dominated India, where outspoken advocates of women's rights are singled out for attack on social media.

They say they won't be silenced.

read more here @ CNN

Horrifying Attacks On Indian Women

From Daily Mail Online:

An Indian husband walked to a police station in India carrying the decapitated head of his wife who he beheaded after accusing her of having an affair. 

Chinnar Yadav attacked his wife Vimla with a sharp weapon after a heated argument in which he accused her of being unfaithful with their neighbour, according to police.

After killing and beheading his wife, Yadav was then filmed carrying her severed head to their local police station in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Similar scenes were captured in Uttar Pradesh in February when another man decapitated his wife and walked through the streets singing the Indian national anthem. 

This is not the only attacks on women in this region. You have the following horrific examples:

- husband kills wife he thinks is about to give birth to a daughter

- gang rape reported but not believed by police

- reporting sexual assault is termed a conspiracy

- rape culture criticised

- vulnerability of women

- acid attack on woman by neighbours

- cremation of rape victim under scrutiny

- high incidents of crime against women

- congress woman assaulted for speaking out

- woman brutalised

- another gang rape death

- sexual assault not believed, justice delayed

- woman beaten for resisting public molestation

- high level of crimes against women

The northern region of Uttar Pradesh is one of the four largest states in India, with a population to 200 million (and growing). With the fifth largest economy, the state is now dominated by the services industry. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies.

Uttar Pradesh also has the highest number of crimes among any state in India, but due to its high population. Uttar Pradesh also continues to top the list of states with maximum communal violence incidents. An analysis of Ministers of State of Home Affairs states (2014), 23% of all incidents of communal violence in India took place in Uttar Pradesh - this includes violence against religious minorities, social castes, and women. According to a post from NDTV, "... 4,322 cases of rape were reported in 2018, with almost 12 taking place daily ..." - and further statistics are provided in this article from The Hindu, with this alarming statistic that "... the conviction rate in rape-related cases stood at 27.2% even though the rate of filing chargesheets was 85.3% in such cases ..."

This is just over the last year or so; it boggles the mind to think of the brutality women and girls have been silently subjected to in years past. Something needs to be done!

The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia

Six days ago a most disturbing article was posted on the website VICE, written by Jean Friedman-Rudovsky entitled "The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia".


From Jean's article:
"For a while, the residents of Manitoba Colony thought demons were raping the town’s women. There was no other explanation. No way of explaining how a woman could wake up with blood and semen stains smeared across her sheets and no memory of the previous night. No way of explaining how another went to sleep clothed, only to wake up naked and covered by dirty fingerprints all over her body. No way to understand how another could dream of a man forcing himself onto her in a field – and then wake up the next morning with grass in her hair.

Then, one night in June 2009, two men were caught trying to enter a neighbour’s home. The two ratted out a few friends and, falling like a house of cards, a group of nine Manitoba men, ages 19 to 43, eventually confessed that they had been raping Colony families since 2005."

Menno Simons, a 16th century Protestant Reformer from 

whom the Mennonites get their name

Jean's article goes on to report a disturbing case of mass rape and other violence against the women (and in some cases, men and boys) of the small Bolivian community, dating back (from today's date) over eight years. It is a disturbing indictment against the masculine views of this community towards this horrid situation - and one which in this day and age seem almost medieval.

For Jean's article on VICE, please use this link: The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia


For items posted on this blog that also focused on this tragedy, please see:
Victims of Mennonite “Old Colonies” in Bolivia posted 27th August 2011
Bolivia - Violence Against Women and Girls posted 28th June 2009


See also:
History of the Mennonite Church
Mennonites on wikipedia

Anti-Rape Fashion

From the Daily Beast:

“You might find a bit of armor useful when you become queen,” Cersei Lannister recently told a female rival on Game of Thrones. But her advice could just as easily apply to women from all walks of life—particularly now, in the aftermath of a series of high-profile sexual assaults around the world. In a reflex response to the quest for a societal aegis, a number of contemporary clothing designers have found armor (or a variation thereof) useful as a form of protection for women. Most recently, three Indian engineering students designed a bra even more kick-ass than the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms’ chest plate. The so-called Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE) reportedly delivers 82 shocks in response to an unwanted touch and was designed as “retaliation against menaces in society” after last year’s gang rape in Delhi.

Sorry State of Women In India

Tragic tales of violence against women and children has emerged from India.  Here are just a few of the headlines that have appeared this week:

From the Guardian:

Indian PM Manmohan Singh: women's status and safety a growing concern...  India must make vast improvements to protect women, says prime minister amid protests over rape of five-year-old girl.

From the Times of India:

CPM politburo member Brinda Karat on Sunday called for the need to amend the criminal law to protect tribal women against the atrocities by officials and guards of forest department.Expressing concern over the increase in crimes against women, Brinda Karat said the issue of atrocities against tribal women should also be addressed. 

From The Hindu:
Even as protests against the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in the Gandhi Nagar area of East Delhi snowballed into widespread public outrage, the 22-year-old casual worker accused of the crime was brought here on Saturday.

From The Siasat Daily:
The brutal rapist of the five-year-old girl had met his equally vile partner-in-crime during a chance meeting aboard a train earlier this year, sources claimed on Sunday. Identified by sources as one Pradeep, the man in question is now ‘officially’ the second accused in the case which took place precisely a week ago. “Manoj Kumar Sah, the main accused, kept twisting facts, changing his statements and putting the entire blame on Pradeep as soon as he was arrested,” said an officer.

Also from The Siasat Daily:
Second Delhi child rape accused arrested from Bihar .....One more person allegedly involved in the rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi a week ago has been arrested, police said on Monday. Pradeep, the second accused, was apprehended from Bihar in a joint operation by Delhi and Bihar Police, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar told PTI.

And this again from The Siasat Daily:

Delhi rape accused Manoj raped wife before marriage .....In another shocking revelation it has been reported that rape accused Manoj Kumar, who was arrested by police yesterday had also raped his wife before marriage.

From Huffington Post:
Women's groups here are hailing a new law, passed March 21, that stiffens punishments of sexual violence in the aftermath of the notorious gang rape last December that left a medical student dead.

And then this tragic story from The Siasat Daily:
A 22-year-old mentally challenged woman was raped allegedly by a ward boy at a nursing home whose doctors have been arrested on charge of trying to bribe the victim's kin to hush up the matter. The incident occurred at Walhekarwadi in Chinchwad town near hear on April 16 in the nursing home run by Dr Vishal Sonawane (34) and his wife Dr Varsha (31) where the victim was undergoing treatment, police said today. Police arrested the accused, identified as Subhash Modad (22), on the charge of rape and the doctor couple for trying to hush up the matter and bribe the victim's kin to not report the incident to police as it would bring bad name to their hospital.

From Opposing Views:

Gruesome footage surfaced today of four men relentlessly beating an Indian woman in Ludhiana, a city in the northwest Indian province of Punjab. The woman says she was beaten because she asked to be repaid a sum of money that she had lent to one of the men. The amount is reported to be 20,000 rupees, the equivalent of about $370 USD.

From CTV News:

But exotic ancient India has run headlong into the rapidly growing economic powerhouse, where women have stepped out of traditional roles, resulting in harsh questions about their treatment which is considered to be among the worst in the world. Rape is common. Sexual assault goes unreported. The victim is often blamed, which the perpetrator walks free.

Epidemic of Rape in Peru

From RH Reality Check:

Peru, while famous for its modern culinary delights and ancient civilizations, also has a far less flattering distinction: it has more reported cases of rape and sexual violence than any other country in South America. Eight in ten of these victims are minors.

Researchers estimate that 35,000 pregnancies occur every year in Peru as a result of rape. Women and girls in this situation are faced with two options: seek an illegal abortion and risk going to jail or carry the pregnancy to term and suffer the psychological and physical trauma that go along with giving birth to your rapist’s child. Women who can prove that a pregnancy is the result of rape receive a “reduced” sentence of three months in jail (the standard prison sentence for illegal abortions in Peru is two years). Perversely, this reduced sentence does not apply to married women who are raped by their husbands, even though marital rape is a crime under Peruvian law. Doctors who perform abortions in cases of rape face up to six years in prison.

A coalition of women’s rights groups have launched a campaign to challenge this cruel violation of human rights. The campaign, Dejala Decidir (“Let her decide”), seeks to introduce a new law that decriminalizes abortion in cases of rape (currently, abortion is only permitted when the woman’s life or health is at risk). The groups, led by partners of the International Women’s Health Coalition—PROMSEX, Demus, Catholics for the Right to Decide-Peru, Manuela Ramos, CLADEM-Peru, and Flora Tristán—need to collect 60,000 valid signatures to petition Congress to consider the bill.

New Delhi Gang Rape Outrage

From Time World:

Last Sunday in New Delhi, at around 9.30 p.m., a 23-year-old woman was gang raped for almost an hour on a moving bus and then thrown semi-naked on the road to die. Hideous violence against women is nothing new in India, but this particular outrage has caused widespread anger. Perhaps it was the casual ferocity of it. Or the fact that it took place on some of the teeming capital’s busiest streets. Or perhaps a nation at great pains to modernize is finding it hard to stomach what feels like an increasingly predatory sexual culture.

Experts say blaming survivors of sexual assault is common in India. Rather than prosecute perpetrators, many say the fault belongs to rape survivors, who are shamed for, say, daring to walk alone, taking public transportation or wearing certain clothes. “Blaming the victim has been in some way also part of the larger design of the system, where you want to push the women to say they are responsible for what happens to them,” says Ranjana Kumari, a member of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women. “It is like saying men are not responsible but it is the women who lured them into this.”

Maids Rescued From Captivity

From The Star:

Immigration officers rescued 105 foreign women found locked in a four-storey maid agency in Bandar Baru Klang here during a 7.47am raid on Saturday, said Amran Ahmad, Port Klang director of the Selangor Immigration Department.

The women, aged between 18 and 25 years, were locked up at level three and four of the premises, located above the maid agency.

"All the women - 95 Indonesians, 6 Filipinos and 4 Cambodians had only social visit passes and are believed to have entered the country in the last one to six months," he told reporters here.

Police arrested 12 people, including three local men, believed to be employees. The rest were women - five Indonesians, three Cambodians and a Filipino - who were believed to be supervisors of the rescued women, he said.

Iran: Four Women Stoned To Death

Varying reports are surfacing that four Iranian women have been stoned to death.

Read More Here -: MFS - The Other News:

Based on reports received by the Melli-Mazhabi  (Religious-Nationalist) website (English translation can be read here), security agents from the Iranian Judiciary transferred the bodies of four women who had been stoned to death to the Tehran forensic medicine department. The bodies are currently in freezers at this department.

The stoning executions occurred two days after the Chair of Judicial and Legal Committee of the Iranian Parliament announced that the act of stoning had been replaced by alternative forms of punishment. According to Allahyar Malekshahi, conditions of adultery, the burden of proof, and the punishment for the offence were discussed in the Committee. According to Mr. Malekshahi, “In Iran’s [Islamic Penal] Code, adultery is punishable by death, but conditions on how to prove the act of adultery has taken place are not mentioned. In order to clarify the law, a separate section was added to distinguish the conditions under which a relationship is qualified as adultery.

See also: Iran Human Rights

Warning: the above links contain images many will find distressing.

Girl Challenges Taliban

From the Post Gazette:

The Taliban's attempted murder of a 14-year-old girl simply because she campaigned for the right of Pakistani girls to go to school is extreme even by that group's barbaric, medieval standards.

Malala Yousufzai, a young activist who defied the Taliban by pursuing an education and encouraging other girls to do so, was shot Tuesday in the head and neck by an assailant as she sat in a school bus in Mingora, a town in the Swat Valley.

Manchester Female Reformers At Peterloo Massacre

From the Guardian:
The Peterloo massacre  on Monday 16 August 1819 - 193 years ago tomorrow - took place when a peaceful crowd, assembled to demand the reform of Parliament, was attacked by armed soldiers and yeomanry, leading to many deaths and injuries. The events of the day have been the subject of many books, novels, prints and poems, but the role of women has often been overlooked.

As the reform movement gathered momentum in the spring of 1819, women stepped onto the public stage, setting up Female Reform Societies  in a number of towns. Blackburn women led the way. On 5 July the Female Reformers, described as "very neatly dressed for the occasion", and each wearing a green favour in her bonnet or cap, attended an outdoor public meeting, at which they presented a Cap of Liberty made of scarlet silk to the chair, John Knight.

At least 18 people were killed on the field or died later of their injuries, of whom four were women. These were Margaret Downes – sabred; Mary Heys - trampled by cavalry; Sarah Jones – truncheoned on the head by special constables; and Martha Partington, – crushed to death in a cellar. Of the 654 people listed as being injured, 168 were women.

Man Beheads Daughter

From NineMSN:

An Indian father beheaded his daughter with a sword and paraded it through his village after learning of her alleged "indecent behaviour" with men.

Police in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan say they were shocked when Oghad Singh turned himself over to authorities with the severed head and sword still in his hands.

Singh's daughter, Manju Kunwar, 20, was living with her parents after leaving her husband two years ago.

Police Superintendent Umesh Ojha says Singh was upset by his daughter having affairs with men and became enraged when she eloped with one of them two weeks ago, NY Daily News reports.

Supt. Ojha said Singh forced her to return home Sunday and beheaded her Monday with a sword.

Pakistani Women Has New Nose After 32 Years

From Gulf News:

After six years of abuse, Allah Rakhi was in the process of walking out of her marriage when her husband struck once again. Snatching a knife, he sliced off her nose. “You’re no longer beautiful!” he shouted.

He then slashed at her foot - a brutal punishment for leaving the house without his permission.

“A woman is only a woman inside the home, outside she’s a [expletive]!” he yelled at Rakhi as she lay bleeding on the dusty street just outside her home.

That was 32 years ago. All that time, Rakhi hid her disfigured face under a veil. Then in March, a surgeon took up her case. He cut flesh from her ribs and fashioned it into a new nose, and in the process, has transformed her life.

Witchcraft in Tanzania

From the Daily Telegraph:

SOME 3000 people suspected of witchcraft, mainly old women, were lynched in Tanzania from 2005 to 2011, a leading local rights group said today.

"Between 2005 and 2011 around 3000 people were lynched by frightened neighbours who thought they were witches," the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) said in a report.

"On average 500 people... particularly old women with red eyes, are killed every year in Tanzania because they are suspected of being witches," the report said.

The provinces hardest hit are Mwanza and Shinyanga in the north of the country, LHRC said.

"In Shinyanga province for example 242 people were killed because of local beliefs in witchcraft between January 2010 and January 2011 alone," it said.

The rights group explained that red eyes are feared as a sign of witchcraft, even if they in fact often result from the use of cow dung as cooking fuel in impoverished communities.

See Also:
Witchcraft & Sorcery in Tanzania
Children Accused of Crime of Witchcraft

Women Violated in War Denied Memorials

From We:news:

Japanese officials are trying to remove a small monument to Korean "comfort women" in New Jersey. Rochelle Saidel says these and other women violated by war are still being denied official recognition.

In the early 1990s, Kim Hak Soon was the first former comfort woman to speak out, at the age of 67, and her testimony inspired other women to do the same. Within one year more than 200 other Korean women who had been enslaved as comfort women came forward. They have joined together, supported each other and shared their experience.

Fear Of Reprisals Over "Saving Face"

From LINK:

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy made history earlier this year when she won Pakistan’s first Oscar, feted across the country for exposing the horrors endured by women whose faces are obliterated in devastating acid attacks.

Her 40-minute film focuses on Zakia and Rukhsana as they fight to rebuild their lives after being attacked by their husbands, and British Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad who tries to help repair their shattered looks.

When “Saving Face” scooped a coveted gold statuette in the documentary category in Hollywood in February, campaigners were initially jubilant.

The Acid Survivors Foundation Pakistan (ASF) had cooperated on the film but some survivors now fear a backlash in a deeply conservative society — and are taking legal action against the producers.

Jharkhand Women Still Witchcraft Victims

From the Daily Pioneer:

In a shocking revelation, a report released by Jharkhand Human Rights Movement 2001-2011, says every three days a woman becomes victim of crime related to witchcraft in Jharkhand. Jharkhand has reported 1,157 cases of murder between the year 1991 to 2010, where a woman was branded a witch and killed.

The report says that every third day a woman is persecuted under the garb of witchcraft. According to the facts and figures of Jharkhand State Legal Authority 175 women were branded as ‘witch’ and subjected to atrocities every year in Jharkhand.

Being the State capital, Ranchi registered the maximum number of cases of witchcraft. About 250 cases of witchcraft were registered in Ranchi during the past decade. On the other hand Godda, a backward district as compared to Ranchi registered only 11 cases.

Witchcraft is a never ending story in Jharkhand. Illiteracy, lack of awareness and medical facilities are the major reasons behind this. Ojhas (witch doctors) play an important role in this medieval practice.

End Invasion Searches Of Female Prisoners

From Detriot Free Press:

The American Civil Liberties Union said it plans today to urge the Michigan Department of Corrections to ban an invasive vaginal strip search that humiliates female prisoners.

It said women are forced to expose themselves, often with unclean hands while sitting on an unsanitized chair and in full view of other prisoners, while a female guard checks to see whether they're concealing contraband.

The ACLU said it believes Michigan's is the only prison system in the nation to routinely use such searches as a matter of policy.

The searches can be especially traumatic because many female prisoners are victims of sexual assault, the ACLU said.

Over the years, female prisoners in Michigan have been awarded more than $100 million in suits resulting from sexual assaults by corrections staff.