From the Epoch Times:The police in Aceh province began arresting women for wearing tight pants and skirts Thursday after a new law was passed forcing citizens to honor Muslim tradition. 20,000 long skirts were distributed for women to wear until they can adjust their wardrobe. Police are not forcing women to become Muslim, but they are requiring them to wear traditional clothing, reported Foxnews.com.
“The [Tight Pants] rule applies only to Muslim residents in West Aceh. We don't enforce it for non-Muslims, but are asking them to respect us,” Ramli Mansur, head of West Aceh district told the Associated Press.
From VOA News:A new survey has found that Zimbabwean women are largely dissatisfied with the country's inclusive government because they feel that it has not improved their lives.
The poll by the Research and Advocacy Unit and the Zimbabwe Women’s Coalition, among other groups, found 85 percent of the 2,000 women surveyed said the government did not represent them as they were not consulted when it was put in place in February 2009 based on a 2008 Global Political Agreement.
Fifty-two percent of the women polled said they had experienced political violence and 16 percent said they knew someone who had been raped in their community.
Carried out late last year, the survey found 51 percent of respondents backing Prime Minister Tsvangirai - but 74 percent said President Robert Mugabe had more power in the current unity government.
Women’s Program Manager Kudakwashe Chitsike of the Research and Advocacy Unit said there is little confidence among Zimbabwean women that the government.
From the Christian Examiner:Fourteen months after being arrested for their Christian faith, two young Iranian women were acquitted on apostasy charges.
Maryam Rostampour, 28, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 31, who spent more than 250 days in jail for their faith, were acquitted by the Iranian judicial authorities and warned that any future Christian activity in Iran would be meant with serious consequences.
The young women were arrested in March 2009 and faced apostasy charges and possible death sentences for converting to Christianity and for reportedly engaging in evangelistic activities and Bible distribution.
Rostampour and Amirizadeh endured repeated interrogations, weeks in solitary confinement, and unhealthy prison conditions in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. According to Elam Ministries, both women became seriously sick during their imprisonment and did not receive the treatment they needed, which greatly increased their suffering.
A deputy prosecutor who told them to renounce their faith questioned the women at one point. According to Farsi Christian News Network Rostampour and Amirizadeh stood firm and replied, “We will not deny our faith.”
And from Reuters:Iran's second biggest city has massively increased the amount it fines for women who fail to observe the Islamic dress code and don't cover their hair properly, media reported.
Morality police around Iran are beginning their annual spring crackdown on women wearing too much makeup, daring to show their hair or dressing in a way that shows their body contours too clearly.
In the holy city of Masshad, the public prosecutor has increased the fine to 1.3 million tomans, roughly $1,300 -- a hefty sum in a country where a teacher's monthly salary is around $500.
"In the past the penalty for not observing the Islamic dress code was 50,000 tomans along with two months' imprisonment," Mashhad's public and revolutionary prosecutor Mahmoud Zoghi told the semi-official Fars news agency.
From the Hindustan Times:Since the day Kiran Bedi was selected as the first woman IPS officer, the Delhi Police have come a long way. However, the elite force is yet to fulfil the expected 15 per cent quota meant for women personnel.
That’s not all: No woman holds the rank of additional commissioner of police or above, i.e. joint commissioner of police, special commissioner of police and of course, the commissioner of police.
These revelations were part of the reply given by the Delhi Police to the RTI query of an activist, Subhash Agrawal.
He had asked the Delhi Police if there was any directive from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) about the percentage strength of women in Delhi Police, the current statistical data of the force and steps taken to bridge the gap.
The numbers, according to the RTI query reply, are: There are just three women out of 33 at DCP level (10 per cent); none among 49 at Additional DCP rank and just 32 out of 243 (16 per cent) at ACP level.
The women inspectors comprise just 6.16 per cent (79 out of 1282). There are even lesser in number at sub-inspector rank: just 168 out of 4047 (4.15 per cent).
However, the lowest proportion emerged at the head constable level, where women police personnel are just 3.80 per cent (642 of 16,875). Class IV does have a little more than 18 per cent strength of the total, the RTI informs.
The number of women personnel in the force remains low despite the advisory issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Delhi Police to raise the strength of women to 15 per cent of the total manpower.
From the Australian:WHEN the house of Orange-Nassau finally became monarchs in The Netherlands in 1815, it was the result of hundreds of years of manoeuvring: battles physical and political and, Susan Broomhall contends, a solid effort by generations of the family's women.
"The male line was really weak, they died in battle or were minors for many years," says Broomhall, a professor of history at the University of Western Australia. "It was the women who kept reminding people of the family through systematically promoting it, so when The Netherlands decided on a monarchy, their family was the obvious choice." The family still rules, via Queen Beatrix.
A $450,000, four-year Australian Research Council grant will help Broomhall and colleague Jacqueline Van Gent tease out the scope of the women's influence.
"For most of the people who have researched this family it's all been about the men, but there is a whole other side," Broomhall says. "It's a different way of thinking about family."
From the Business Spectator:In the session on Women in Leadership, Kate O’Reilly, founding director of Optimiss, opened by commenting that there are only eight per cent of women executives in the Australian corporate world.
And in the face of a changing global market, it is vital that Australian businesses must also change.
Rather than adopt the ‘easier’ solution to fix what isn’t perceived as broken, the panellists would like to see more challenging of the status quo and a continuation of shifting demographics.
One initiative is a new ASIC guideline, which will soon enable corporations to voluntarily quote their gender diversity. The concept is based on the successful Norwegian model, where more women are now in leader positions after the model became mandatory in 2005.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:Homeless women are vulnerable and terrified of being attacked in cities across Australia and the community must open its heart to them, the Prime Minister's wife says.
Ms Rein, who is patron of homeless organisation Common Ground, told the audience homeless women often couch-surfed to avoid rough sleeping.
"Sleeping rough is even more dangerous for women," she said.
"They're sleeping in hidden nooks and crannies, wandering the streets until they collapse with exhaustion, terrified they'll be attacked."
She said a new model of care, pioneered by Common Ground in America, and now being set up across cities in Australia, aimed to give homeless people tenancies.
Permanent housing allows homeless people the ability to rebuild their lives, Ms Rein said.
From Times Online:Gorilla-face generally strikes women in their late thirties. You wake up one morning looking like an extra from Planet of the Apes.
Gorilla-face, to give it its technical name, is an occupational hazard for the older woman. When it first strikes is largely down to genes and environmental factors, but it generally starts to happen towards the end of your thirties. You go to bed looking perfectly normal — even quite acceptable in a good light — and you wake up looking like an extra from Planet of the Apes.
What are you thoughts on Sarah's article???
From Thaindian News:Every month at least 500 girls each are trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh to India through the eastern corridor, and the figures are rising, says award-winning Kolkata-based documentary filmmaker Ananya Chatterjee-Chakraborty.
Chatterjee-Chakraborty has won the Ladli-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) award for her 89-minute documentary on women and child trafficking, “Understanding Trafficking”. She will receive the prize from President Pratibha Patil May 11 in the capital.
“Some of these girls are sold to brothels while some are forced into farm labour. The best looking ones are sent to the Middle East. The next best category goes to Mumbai,” Chatterjee-Chakraborty, who is also a writer and teaches in St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, told IANS over telephone.
Interpol estimates say trafficking in women and children is a $1 billion global industry that continues to grow every year. Nearly 200,000 girls of Nepali origin work in Indian brothels.
