Girls Force Fed For Marriage

This story made news yesterday, although this following article is over a year old, it is still quite relevant today:

From the Guardian:

Fears are growing for the fate of thousands of young girls in rural Mauritania, where campaigners say the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage is making a significant comeback since a military junta took over the West African country.

Aminetou Mint Ely, a women's rights campaigner, said girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid - and consuming their vomit if they reject it.

"In Mauritania, a woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in her husband's heart," said Mint Ely, head of the Association of Women Heads of Households. ''We have gone backwards. We had a Ministry of Women's Affairs. We had achieved a parliamentary quota of 20% of seats. We had female diplomats and governors. The military have set us back by decades, sending us back to our traditional roles. We no longer even have a ministry to talk to." Mauritania has suffered a series of coups since independence from France in 1960. The latest, in August last year, saw General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz seize power after the elected president tried to sack him.

Iran: Woman to be stoned to death

From Entertainment Biz:

The political authorities of Iran are being constantly fuzzed by the religious who’s who of the country. Now, a woman is on the verge of being stoned to death as she is suspected to have committed adultery.

43 year old Sakineh Mohammadi was held guilty of having carnal relations with two men simultaneously and with those incumbents who were responsible for her husband’s death in 2005.

Sakineh hails from the Irania city of Tabriz, located in the north-western part of the country. Sakineh was first lashed 99 times for her involvement in infidelity and then she was transferred to the jail. Unfaithfulness is punished with imprisonment all over the world, but in Iran, it seems to be the revisit to the medieval times. Sakineh’s sons have long been endorsing a human rights movement to reach out to the Amnesty to save her life.

India: Military Women

From the Telegraph:

The government has sought a review of a Delhi High Court order that asks the army to grant permanent commission to women officers.

The defence ministry today filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court after the high court issued notices to the army chief, General V.K. Singh, the defence secretary, Pradeep Kumar and the Adjutant General, Lt General Mukesh Sabharwal, on Monday.

Women are recruited into the military only on short service commission (for a maximum of 14 years). Men can qualify for permanent commission depending on their service record.

The high court asked the government to explain its position on directions given by it on March 12 on a petition by 52 women officers of the army and the air force.

In March, the high court had directed that the women should be granted permanent commission in non-combat role.

Iraq: Grim Potwar Future For Widows

From Associated Press:

Three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings have left Iraq with as many as a million widows, by Iraqi government count. Hameeda Ayed is one of them.

At 45, with three children, she is part of a vast sisterhood in a tortured land, and for the more than 100,000 who lost their husbands in the U.S.-led invasion and violent aftermath, the struggling postwar government is of little help.

Ayed is entitled to 150,000 dinars (about $130) a month from the government, plus 15,000 dinars (about $12) for each of her children. But after two years of chasing after official papers and signatures on her application, having no friends in high places to grease the wheels for her, she says she is giving up; the endless standing in line was making her neglect the children, aged 10, 12 and 15.

Sport: Caster Can Run

From CBS News:

South African running phenomenon Caster Semenya, who blew past her competition at the Berlin world championships last August, has been cleared to compete as a woman - nearly a year after controversial gender tests put her career on hold. Semenya, 19, has not run competitively for 11 months. During that time she underwent a battery of psychological, gynecological and endocrine tests.

Kenya: Women In Slums Vulnerable

From the Daily Nation:

Women and girls in Nairobi’s slums live under constant threat of sexual violence, a new report says.

Because of this, they are too scared to leave their houses to use communal toilets, says the report to be released on Wednesday by human rights group Amnesty International.

Titled Insecurity and dignity — women’s experiences in the slums of Nairobi, the report details how the government’s failure to incorporate slums in urban planning has resulted in poor access to services.

“Women in Nairobi’s settlements become prisoners in their own homes at night and sometimes well before it is dark,” AI East African researcher Godfrey Odongo says.

“They need more privacy than men when using the toilet or bathing and inaccessibility of facilities makes them vulnerable to rape.”

Mr Odongo says inability to access the limited communal toilets also puts them at risk of illness.

Haiti: No Justice For Women

From AFP:

The inmates at Haiti's only women's prison cry out in desperation as warden Marie-Yolaine Mathieu makes her rounds, hoping that she will hear their case and perhaps, help secure their release.

This impoverished Caribbean country's broken judicial system has failed its citizens at every turn. But it has been especially delinquent in prosecuting those who face criminal charges but have never been convicted of crimes.

Haiti's main in prison in Port-au-Prince was virtually destroyed by the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12, and almost all of its estimated 4,000 male prisoners escaped.

But the women's institution -- condemned years ago by UN officials as "cruel and inhumane" -- still holds its unhappy occupants. Built for around 30 inmates houses 300.

Women in Science: Suzanne Cory

From Nature News:

Suzanne Cory became the first elected female president of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) on 7 May. Hers is the latest in a string of recent appointments that have seen women installed in top Australian scientific posts, including that of the chief scientist for Australia and the head of CSIRO, the nation's largest research network.

Helia al-Qusayyer

From One India:

The arrest of the 'First Lady of Al Qaeda,' Heila al-Qusayyer, has rung the alarm bells for the Saudi authorities, who have continued to turn a blind eye to women's participation in the terror outfits, till the recent discovery about her was disclosed.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia believes that her capture signals a need to rethink counter-terrorism strategy and pay more attention to the activities and recruitment of female operatives.

Qusayyer's arrest is an indication how al Qaeda's new strategy has moved women up the jihadi ranks.