NEWSGLOBAL WOMEN'S RIGHTS

In September, a horrifying video came to light at Abia State University in Nigeria, depicting five men gang-raping a young woman as she begged them to just kill her. Concerned citizens in Nigeria and around the world, activists, and bloggers called for the "ABSU5" to be brought to justice, denouncing the culture of impunity that led these criminals to believe they could get away with taping and distributing their assault. Yet University and Abia State officials refused to take action, denying the violent act occurred in their jurisdiction without investigating. The Assistant Commissioner of Police, J.G. Micloth, even claimed that the brutal attack looked consensual -- or was punishment for the girl somehow shaming her boyfriend -- to excuse their failure to act.

More than 90,000 Change.org members worldwide signed a petition by Adetomi Aladekomo, a Nigerian rape survivor now living in Canada, calling for these men to be arrested and prosecuted. Finally, last month Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mohammad Adoke intervened in the case, demanding that the Inspector-General of Police investigate the assault. Carol Aije, a Nigerian lawyer who deals with sexual violence cases across the country and has collaborated with the Change.org campaign, directly petitioned the Attorney General's office urging this action, adding to the protests occurring online and on the ground.

This is significant progress. But the campaign isn't over. Though Attorney General Adoke ordered a full investigation, it hasn't happened yet. And Nigeria's law enforcement has been all stirred up, with former Inspector-General Hafiz Ringim removed from his position for incompetence dealing with terrorism. For the campaign to succeed, international attention must continue to make sure that the new Inspector-General, Mohammad Abubakar, follows through with the investigation, and the Attorney General keeps an eye on the proceedings.

Adetomi also hopes to see a law strengthening violence against women legislation, which would also help victims such as Franca Ogbu, a student deeply disfigured by an acid attack whose assailant remains at large. To add your voice to Adetomi's campaign and help bring the gang-rapists to justice, you can sign the petition here.

More than 85,000 people worldwide have joined a Nigerian woman’s popular campaign on Change.org calling on officials in Nigeria to arrest five men who videotaped themselves gang-raping a young woman.

Adetomi Aladekomo, who grew up in Nigeria and still has family there, launched the petition on Change.org after being sent the horrifying video, which depicts an hour of a brutal gang-rape by five men reported to be Abia State University (ABSU) students. The ABSU vice chancellor, Abia State governor, and local law enforcement reportedly denied the assault without conducting a proper investigation. Adetomi, a rape survivor herself, decided to take action to hold the officials accountable.

“When I created this petition I was concerned with finding the men who committed this heinous act,” stated Adetomi. “Now I realize that the issue is bigger than these five men. We need to have an educated and caring government that bothers to fact-check before rashly taking a stand or declaring that despite video evidence, a rape did not take place.”

Last week a shocking video started making rounds through the Nigerian blogosphere. A fellow blogger sent me an email that contained two videos and a short write-up. Being typically me, I skipped her words and went straight to the videos. I started from the shorter video, it was a clip about ten minutes long and the first words I heard as I started listening were "but am I not cooperating?" The video was grainy and not too clear but the scene before me was quite clear and easy to read. There was a girl and she was being raped. I watched exactly 33 seconds of the video before I realized this.

In this shocking video, the full version of which is a little over an hour long, we see a girl being raped repeatedly by five different men in a dormitory style room. In the beginning of the video we hear her pleading with her captors to let her go and promising she will not tell anyone or make a fuss. Her captors laugh off her pleas and threaten to keep her captive and rape her for two days if she does not "cooperate" with them. We also gather that the rape is her punishment for allegedly insulting one of the five rapists. The rape was recorded and then passed around to their friends, to other students of the university, until finally it made its way into the hands of Linda Ikeji, who in outrage posted it on her blog asking for justice for this poor girl.

I was raped at 17. I have never actually come right out and said it before today to anyone but my closest friends and family but while watching that video, I felt something inside me break. The pain and shame I suffered at the hands of one man seemed to me at the time too unbearable to live with and two months later I tried to take my life. I was unable to watch the entire video because the entire time I kept multiplying what I went through by 5 and then trying to imagine the added humiliation of having an entire campus plus countless of nameless, faceless internet users watch my suffering and despair over and over and over again. I could not. I could only cry and so cry I did. And when I was done crying I realized that I had to do something for this girl that no one did for me. I had to stand up and let my voice be heard. I never reported my rape. In fact, it took me over a year to tell my parents what had prompted me to attempt to take my life that night. My rape occurred seven and a half years ago and I would be lying if I said it did not change my life. Till today I have an extreme fear of being stabbed, having been forced at knifepoint into the bushes. So I decided that this girl would not have to live with the knowledge that her attackers got away with what they did. I decided that somehow I would ensure that, these men faced the consequences of their actions.

A petition from MADRE, a global women's rights organization, is accusing Iraqi government security forces of sexually assaulting women to break up pro-democracy protests and demanding that officials intervene to protect the peaceful demonstrators.

MADRE's partner group, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), reported that activists were beaten, violently groped, and sexually assaulted by thousands of men who were bussed into Baghdad's Tehrir Square on June 10. Nineteen-year-old Aya Mohammad told Al Jazeera that the men called them "whores" and "prostitutes," attempted to rip off her clothes, and broke a tooth. And when Mohammad went to government security forces standing by, bleeding and bruised, they refused to help.

According to MADRE's press release, they believe that the attackers "were organized by Iraq’s official security forces and were un-uniformed to keep them from being held accountable." Some of the assailants were even carrying police identification cards.

"My concern is the Toronto District School Board (is) using tax money to tell girls that they are second-class citizens," Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, told the Toronto Sun. He's talking about the District's decision to allow a Muslim Friday prayer session in the Valley Park Middle School cafeteria, where it forces girls to sit behind the boys, and sends menstruating girls to the back where they can only listen, but not participate.

In just the past few hours, over 2000 people have signed a petition started by a Toronto resident, Tim Das, asking that the misogynist prayer sessions end -- that if the school wants to provide religious accommodations, it must still uphold its own gender equity policy and the terms of Ontario's Education Act. "The moment I read this story, I was aghast -- as a first generation Canadian and child of South Asian immigrants, as a Toronto resident whose hard earned tax-dollars were being used to facilitate this extreme misogyny, and most of all as the father of a sweet, spirited six year old girl in the Toronto Public School system," Das told Change.org. "After receiving an unsatisfactory response from the Chair of the School Board, I knew I had to do more." That's when he decided to start the petition.

The Muslim Canadian Congress is so strongly opposed to these gender segregated prayer sessions, it's threatening legal action. Alia Hogben, Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, has also spoken out against the school's segregated prayer sessions. Major Canadian papers on the right and left of the political spectrum have published editorials denouncing this practice, which gives school sanction to isolating and embarrassing young girls for a basic bodily function.

Walmart's been all over the news this week, in response to the Supreme Court decision that its female employees cannot bring a class action lawsuit against sex discrimination. But as disturbing as Walmart's record is on discriminating against women working in their stores, there's another area for major concern that has received little media attention. I'm talking about factories that produces clothes for Walmart stores, where women are controlled through debt bondage and regularly raped.

Walmart's not the only well-known brand putting tainted clothes from Classic Fashion factories in its stores (although it is the biggest buyer) -- Macy's, Target, Kohl's, and Hanes all source from the same abusive Jordan factories. An Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights report chronicles a tale of 13 to 18.5 hour workdays, 6 to 7 days a week, for minimal pay and poor living quarters. Thousands of female workers, most immigrants from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or India, face the threat of deportation if they lose or leave their jobs.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Managers grope and fondle the employees regularly, ostensibly to get them to work faster, and, even more horrifying, many repeatedly rape their workers. "Kamala," deported after she became pregnant (a typical occurrence), describes her assault at the hands of a quality control manager: "I was molested in every way… That man tortured me. He took a lot of sexual advantages from me… I had to fulfill everything he desired because I was placed in an extremely vulnerable situation and intimidated… My whole body is in pain… I cannot face my mother and father. I am destroyed. I cannot even change clothes before my mother because Priyantha has destroyed me. I have teeth marks all over my body."

Each year on International Women’s Day, I take time to reflect on the many inspiring and courageous women I’ve had the privilege to meet in my travels as president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development and human rights organization that supports grassroots projects in 36 countries in the Global South. The communities I visit are often ravaged by hunger, violence and disease, all of which are byproducts of gut wrenching poverty. And, from community to community, it always seems that the common thread I see is the marginalization of women, who are oftentimes barred from working or exploited by employers, forced to marry before reaching adulthood and have little if any access to education or information about reproductive health.

Carol Ann and Laura Sutte returned from an anniversary celebration to find their Tennessee home burned down and "QUEERS" spray-painted across their garage. Six months later, not only has law enforcement failed to rule this an obvious case of arson and a hate crime, the couple's insurance refuses to cough up the money they owe for living expenses.

In a moving interview, Carol Ann recounts both how painful it was to face the destruction of their home, and on top of that the insurance company's refusal to reimburse their living expenses, despite the fact that the Sutte's paid for this additional disaster coverage. The women had long faced homophobic harassment at the hand of one of their neighbors, who told them before the attack on their home: "What's better than one dead queer? Two dead queers." But Carol Ann also said that the support of thousands of Change.org members has been "like Christmas tree lights," a reminder that people in the world do care and making it easier for them to press on.

"Hope is dying in Afghanistan."

These are the words of my colleague, Sweeta Noori, who directs Women for Women International’s Afghanistan programs. These words from a woman who has seen it all: from socialist government, to Mujahidin rebels, to Taliban control. She has seen more than three decades factions vying for power, of popular hope for peace, of alternating promises to curtail or to create women’s rights. Only now is the last of hope evaporating for the women of Afghanistan.

As I celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day this March, Sweeta’s words resonate in my mind and my thoughts turn to my sisters in Afghanistan. It strikes me that if hope is dying in Afghanistan, our celebrations are premature.

This centennial anniversary of International Women’s Day, Afghanistan is for me a stark reminder of the distance we have to go in ensuring equality for all: equality economically, equality politically and equality socially. Women and their children are still 70% of all civilians killed in war and 80% of all refugees. Only 8 percent of all peace talks have included women at any level.  International Women’s Day is a time to come together and see how far we have come but to not get caught up in the remembrance; it is also a time to move forward. It is a time to recognize that women are standing up on their own and that we as the international community need to honor that act of courage and support them and protect the space in which to do this.

For years, an ongoing conflict has wrecked the Congo, killing five million people. In addition to the tragic deaths, women and girls face the use of rape and gang rape as a regular weapon of war, and the sexual violence culture has spread to a massive increase in assaults perpetrated by civilians. And your computer, cell phone, or new gold necklace helps this widespread violence continue.

Tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold are vital components of electronics Americans love, and gold is also, of course, used in much jewelry. They're also mined in Congo, often by armed groups who sell these minerals to fund continued violence, rape, and killing. Unfortunately, electronics manufacturers haven't stepped up to provide certified conflict-free products, so whenever you're, say, reading a Change.org article on your laptop, you're using a machine that very likely contributed to the destruction in Congo. But John Prendergast and Sasha Lezhnev of the Enough Project write on the Human Rights cause that there's a new opportunity to change all this.

The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), a group run by six leaders of central African countries, has put its weight behind a plan to provide certification of conflict-free minerals. Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, even suspended mining in the east of the country, where the conflict rages -- yet military commanders have defied his orders, while smuggling continues and major companies have not gotten involved. To support this vital progress, the United States, a huge consumer of these war-stained electronics, must put real support behind it, or the hope for improvement will fall apart.