Pakistan to probe girl's flogging

The Taleban made her brother hold her down, witnesses said

Pakistan's top judge has called for a court hearing into the public flogging of a teenage girl, which was captured on video and shown around the world.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has ordered police and government officials from the north-western Swat Valley to bring the girl to court next week.

The film shows apparent Taleban members holding her down and hitting her with a strap as she cries out in pain.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has condemned the incident as "shameful".

Local sources said the girl had been accused of illicit relations with a man and that the flogging took place about a month and a half ago.

Since then, the provincial government in the North West Frontier Province agreed to implement Sharia law as part of a peace deal with militants there.

A press release quoted Chief Justice Chaudhry - who was only recently restored to office - as saying the action was a cruel violation of fundamental rights that gave Pakistan a bad name.

Forced to marry

The language in the video is of the Swati dialect of Pashto, says the BBC's Abdul Hai Kakar.

The burka-clad woman is heard crying throughout the two-minute flogging and at one point swears on her father that she will not do it again.

Relatives of the man involved in the incident told the BBC he had gone to the house of the girl in the village of Kala Kalay to do repairs as an electrician, but militants accused him of having a relationship with her.

They dragged him from the house and flogged him before punishing the girl, his relatives said.

The Taleban made the girl's brother hold her down during the flogging, they said.

After the incident, the Taleban forced the couple to marry and instructed the man not to divorce his wife. His relatives say he has been left mentally scarred.

The incident happened weeks before the new Sharia courts began to be introduced in Swat.

Militants 'still in control'

Prime Minister Gilani said he strongly condemned the "shameful" incident in a statement issued by his office.

Mr Gilani said it was contrary to Islamic principles, which teach Muslims to treat women politely and gently.

He said the government believed in the rights of women and would continue to take every measure to protect their rights.

The Sharia system was agreed in Swat to try to stop the Taleban from imposing their harsh brand of justice, the BBC's Islamabad correspondent Barbara Plett says.

Previously they had beheaded dissidents and killed women accused of un-Islamic behaviour.

That seems to have significantly decreased after the Taleban leader officially accepted the Islamic courts.

However, it is not clear whether this new justice system will replace Taleban rule in practice.

The courts seem to be operating with some effect in Swat's main city of Mingora but not in outlying rural areas.

There witnesses say the militants continue to exercise control, if not as brutally as before.

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Death on the Home Front: Women in the Crosshairs

http://www.truthout.org/040109M
Ann Jones, TomDispatch.com: "Wake up, America. The boys are coming home, and they're not the boys who went away. On New Year's Day, The New York Times welcomed the advent of 2009 by reporting that, since returning from Iraq, nine members of the Fort Carson, Colorado, Fourth Brigade Combat team had been charged with homicide. Five of the murders they were responsible for took place in 2008 when, in addition, 'charges of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault' at the base rose sharply. Some of the murder victims were chosen at random; four were fellow soldiers - all men. Three were wives or girlfriends."

Amid Abuse of Girls in Brazil, Abortion Debate Flares

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

Published: March 28, 2009

The case of a 9-year-old who had an abortion after saying she was raped has revived a debate over abortion rights.

Here's a snippet:

"Finally, the Vatican’s top bioethics official, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, also criticized the initial stance, saying the 'credibility of our teaching took a blow as it appeared, in the eyes of many, to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy.'"

Go to NY Times article (registration required)

Hollywood's new power posse

An Entourage of Their Own

By DEBORAH SCHOENEMAN

Published: March 22, 2009

Four women who are star screenwriters have a tight bond, and they’re not afraid to use it.

The Great Shame

By BOB HERBERT

Published in the NY Times on March 20, 2009

Sexual assault against women is the great shame of the U.S. armed forces, and there is no evidence that this ghastly problem is diminishing.

I had a conversation several weeks ago with a former Army officer, a woman, who had been attacked in her bed a few years ago by a superior officer, a man, who was intent on raping her.

The woman fought the man off with a fury. When she tried to press charges against him, she was told that she should let the matter drop because she hadn’t been hurt. When she persisted, battalion officials threatened to bring charges against her.

“They were talking about charging me with assault,” she said, her voice still tinged with anger and a sense of disbelief. “I’m no longer in the Army,” she added dryly.

Tia Christopher, a 27-year-old woman who lives in California and works with victims of sexual assault in the military, told me about the time that she was raped when she was in the Navy. She was attacked by another sailor who had come into her room in the barracks.

“He was very rough,” she said. “The girls next door heard my head hitting the wall, and he made quite a mess. When he left, he told me that he’d pray for me and that he still thought I was pretty.”

Ms. Christopher left the Navy. As she put it: “My military career ended. My assailant’s didn’t.”

Rape and other forms of sexual assault against women is the great shame of the U.S. armed forces, and there is no evidence that this ghastly problem, kept out of sight as much as possible, is diminishing.

New data released by the Pentagon showed an almost 9 percent increase in the number of sexual assaults reported in the last fiscal year — 2,923 — and a 25 percent increase in such assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Try to imagine how bizarre it is that women in American uniforms who are enduring all the stresses related to serving in a combat zone have to also worry about defending themselves against rapists wearing the same uniform and lining up in formation right beside them.

The truly chilling fact is that, as the Pentagon readily admits, the overwhelming majority of rapes that occur in the military go unreported, perhaps as many as 80 percent. And most of the men accused of attacking women receive little or no punishment. The military’s record of prosecuting rapists is not just lousy, it’s atrocious.

Louise Slaughter, a Democratic congresswoman from upstate New York, said: “I know of women victims, women in the military, who said to me that the first response they would get if they tried to report a rape was, ‘Oh, you don’t want to ruin that young man’s career, do you?’ ”

Ms. Slaughter has been trying for many years to get the military to really crack down on these crimes. “Very, very few cases result in court-martials,” she said, “and there are not that many that are even adjudicated.”

The Department of Defense has taken a peculiarly optimistic view of the increase in the number of reported sexual attacks. The most recent data is contained in the annual report that the department is required to submit to Congress. The report says that “the overall increase in reports of sexual assault in the military is encouraging,” and goes on to explain:

“It should be noted that increased reports of sexual assault do not reflect a rise in annual incidents of sexual assault. Sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes in the United States. Estimates suggest that only a small percentage of sexual assaults are ever reported to the police. The department suspects that the same is true for military society as well. An increase in the number of reported cases means that the department is capturing a greater proportion of the cases occurring each year.”

How’s that for viewing hideous statistics through rose-colored glasses? If the number of reported cases of rape goes sky-high over the next fiscal year, that will mean that the military is doing an even better job!

The military is one of the most highly controlled environments imaginable. When there are rules that the Pentagon absolutely wants followed, they are rigidly enforced by the chain of command. Violations are not tolerated. The military could bring about a radical reduction in the number of rapes and other forms of sexual assault if it wanted to, and it could radically improve the overall treatment of women in the armed forces.

There is no real desire in the military to modify this aspect of its culture. It is an ultra-macho environment in which the overwhelming tendency has been to see all women — civilian and military, young and old, American and foreign — solely as sexual objects.

Real change, drastic change, will have to be imposed from outside the military. It will not come from within.

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Obama Sets New Course at the UN

http://www.truthout.org/031409B
Haider Rizvi, Inter Press Service: "After nearly a decade of an often tense and estranged relationship with the United Nations, Washington appears to be taking a much more conciliatory and multilateral approach to the world body. US President Barack Obama formally restored funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Wednesday by signing a major spending bill, prompting UN officials to again welcome the policy shift on women's health-related rights."

A Women's Bill of Rights

http://www.truthout.org/030909WA
Justine Andronici, Ms. Magazine: "Once a nation signs on to CEDAW, it commits to examining and identifying gender discrimination in every possible arena - education, health care, legal rights, work, culture, governance - then taking concrete actions to overcome it, including ending violence against women."