BOGOTA (Dow Jones)–More than 250 women in a remote town in southwest Colombia are refusing to have sex with their partners until the central government follows through with a decades-old plan to pave the town’s only access road.
“These women, and all of the rest of us in this town, are fed up with the empty promises from the central government,” Lucelly Del Carmen Viveros, the human rights coordinator in the town of Barbacoas, said in a phone interview Friday.
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — The previous decade was a tough one for men in the U.S. labor market. The number of women in the workforce grew by more than two million between 2000 and 2010, according to historical data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile the number of men employed during this period remained largely stagnant, growing by just 54,000 in 10 years.
In some ways, one can trace the trend back to the early 1970s, when women started to flock to universities around the country and pursue full-time careers afterward. But according to several economists and labor experts, several other factors have contributed as well, perhaps most notably the loss of manufacturing jobs that typically employ men. As a result, men have seen their footing slip in dozens of professions, ranging from medicine to education.
We combed through the BLS data to find how the gender makeup has changed for more than a hundred jobs by comparing the percentage of men in each occupation in 2000 to the percentage as of last year. The following are the careers where men have experienced the biggest loss compared with women.
11th-biggest change: Postal service mail carriers
In the future, you might want to think twice before referring to workers in this profession as mailmen. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of men employed as mail carriers dropped by 50,000, while the number of women increased by 13,000. As a result, women, who used to account for just 30% of the profession, now make up nearly 40%, and if this trend continues, women could account for nearly half of all mail carriers by the end of this decade.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 69.8%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 62.3%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 7.5 percentage points
10th-biggest change: Medical scientists
Many professions in the science and health care industries have seen a major change in gender distribution, driven in part by the growing number of women who pursue college education and graduate with advanced degrees. Medical scientists, who usually are required to have a Ph.D., typically work in labs or at pharmaceutical companies, according to the BLS.
During the previous decade, the number of women working in this profession increased by 25,000, far outpacing the 5,000 men added to the industry. This means men are now officially in the minority among medical scientists.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 54%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 46.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 7.8 percentage points
Ninth-biggest change: Public relations managers
Women have made up the majority of PR managers for years, but recently their lead has grown even stronger. The number of men employed in the industry remained essentially unchanged between 2000 and 2010 (growing by just 2,000 men), while the number of women shot up by 17,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.5%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 40%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 8.5 percentage points
Eighth-biggest change: Misc. health technologists and technicians
This profession includes health care practitioners who use cutting-edge technology to design treatments for medical conditions. From 2000 through last year the number of men in this profession grew by a modest 16,000, but the number of women grew by 66,000, far outpacing men and further increasing the dominance of women in this industry.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 38.1%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 29.3%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 8.8 percentage points
Seventh-biggest change (tie): Dispatchers
Dispatchers are responsible for scheduling and keeping logs of deliveries to and from the workplace, and unlike many of the professions on our list, this is one that generally does not require a college degree. Still, the number of women employed in this field increased by a healthy 30,000 last decade, whereas the number of men decreased by 25,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.6%
Percentage Who Were Men in 2010: 39.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.4 percentage points
Seventh-biggest change (tie): Pressers, textiles, garment and related materials
Those who work in these apparel occupations are responsible for crafting clothes, fabric and other items by hand or machine, but the profession has been on the decline in recent years, shedding some 45,000 positions between 2000 and last year. Women were not immune to this downsizing, but they lost fewer jobs than men, which is why they make up a greater percentage of the industry than they did in 2000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 43.3%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 33.9%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.4 percentage points
Sixth-biggest change: Supervisors of transportation and material moving workers
The BLS data show that women remain hesitant about entering professions that require a high amount of manual labor (including construction and manufacturing), but it is becoming slightly more common for women to manage those who work in these industries, as their growth in this profession proves. Men once made up nearly 90% of these supervisors, but as of last year they held just more than three-quarters of these positions.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 86.7%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 76.8%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 9.9 percentage points
Fifth-biggest change: Writers and authors
No matter what some snooty male authors (cough, V.S. Naipaul) may say, women can certainly write as well as or better than men, and increasingly, many women have chosen to do just that in recent years. Back in 2000, the gender breakdown of writers was close to 50-50, but as of last year, nearly two-thirds of all employed writers were women. In fact, there were 9,000 fewer men employed in this industry by the end of the decade, whereas the number of women skyrocketed by 34,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 46.8%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 36.7%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 10.1 percentage points
Fourth-biggest change: Ushers, lobby attendants and ticket takers
If you’ve noticed more women working in movie theaters and concert halls around the country, you’re probably not alone. These venues have gradually shed their male workers while increasing the number of women they employ. In total, the number of men working in this profession dropped by 7,000 during this period, while the number of women increased by about 5,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 67.9%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 56.9%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 11.1 percentage points
Third-biggest change: Other education, training and library workers
The idea that women would be drawn to work in education is nothing new, but their growth in this profession, which includes teacher assistants as well as audio-visual specialists who can help teachers with classroom presentations, is particularly striking. The profession added 9,000 men to its ranks last decade, and a whopping 54,000 women.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 35.3%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 23.7%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 11.6 percentage points
Second-biggest change: Tax preparers
If you ever thought women were worse at managing money than men, the data certainly prove otherwise. Women have come to dominate the tax preparation industry, with more than 70% of all employees in this profession being women last year, compared to just half that a decade earlier. Indeed, the industry lost 15,000 men during this period, but gained some 27,000 women.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 48.9%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 29.2%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 19.7 percentage points
Biggest change: Veterinarians
Men have lost more ground in the veterinarian profession than in any other in the U.S. labor market, according to the BLS data. In 2000, men accounted for nearly 70% of the industry, but that percentage dropped significantly throughout the decade and now men are officially in the minority. In total, the number of men employed in the industry plummeted by 10,000 during this time, while the number of women veterinarians increased by 23,000.
Percentage of male workers in 2000: 69.5%
Percentage of male workers in 2010: 43.8%
Decline in percentage of male workers: 25.7 percentage points
MUSLIM women who file complaints with police while wearing full-face veils may be fingerprinted in future to confirm their identity, New South Wales Police Minister Mike Gallacher says.
The suggestion arose after Sydney woman Carnita Matthews, 47, who had been sentenced in 2010 to six months’ jail for falsely accusing a police officer of trying forcibly to remove her burqa, won an appeal against her conviction.
The mother of seven had made a criminal complaint to police three days after she was pulled over in her car in Woodbine, southwest Sydney, for a random breath test on June 7, 2010.
Judge Clive Jeffreys yesterday overturned Ms Matthews’ conviction at an appeal hearing in the NSW District Court.
He said there was no evidence to confirm that it was Ms Matthews who had filed the complaint because the person who made it was wearing a face veil.
Mr Gallacher today said that in future criminal cases, complainants and witnesses who failed to remove their face veils may be required to have their fingerprints taken to confirm their identity.
“The suggestion that I have made to the attorney-general, that may well be considered … is that there be a provision on the statutory declaration or the statement for a fingerprint to be obtained from the person being interviewed,” he said in Sydney.
He said the fingerprint data could be destroyed at a later date, at the request of the complainant.
On the issue of police officers compelling women to remove face veils at the actual scenes of alleged crimes, Mr Gallagher conceded police powers were currently not clear.
He said he would speak to Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione to find ways to clarify the situation.
Officers currently have the power to compel the removal of face veils while investigating more serious or indictable offences, Mr Gallacher said.
But they do not have such power under the Motor Transport Act when stopping a driver.
“I want to look at the Motor Transport Act … to ensure where there is uncertainty at the scene, police have the ability to take the person back, which they currently do, to the police station and check their identity,” Mr Gallacher said.
Mr Gallacher said it was his understanding there was nothing in Islamic law which currently forbade women from removing face veils to assist police and the courts.
Any change to the law regarding crime scene identification would be done in a measured way, reflecting individual freedom while balancing police powers, he said.
LONDON (AFP) – Plans to raise the state pension age for women have passed their stage on the way to becoming law, despite cross-party calls for a rethink.
Women can currently claim a state pension from the age of 60, while men must wait until they are 65.
But under the government’s Pensions Bill, the entitlement age for women would rise to 65 by 2018, and then to 66 for both sexes by 2020.
Critics from all parties say the changes would be unfair on up to 500,000 women in their late fifties, who have been given as little as five years’ notice that they will have to work longer than planned.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne branded the timetable for the changes as “a proposal to single out a group of 500,000 of our fellow citizens — all of them women — and say to them, ‘You know your plans for the future? Well you can put those in the bin’.”
But MPs voted to give the Pensions Bill a second reading in the House of Commons, by 302 votes to 232.
Opening the debate, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith warned MPs that delaying the move to 66 until 2022 would cost £10 billion.
“Responsible government is not always easy government,” he said, insisting that the plans would go ahead.
“It involves commitment, tough decisions and a willingness to stay the course.
“We will not change from that, we will stay the course. We will secure our children’s future.
“I recognise we need to implement this fairly and manage the transition smoothly.”
He said a “relatively small number of women” would be particularly affected and said he was “willing to work to get this transition right”.
More than 170 MPs, including both Conservative and Liberal Democrat backbenchers, have signed a Commons motion calling for a rethink.
Ros Altmann, the director general of over-50s organisation Saga, has warned that ministers could face a costly legal challenge if they do not moderate the proposals.
“Ministers must listen to reason on this issue,” she said.
“The current plans are unfair and may, indeed, be illegal in public law terms, since they clearly do not give women adequate notice.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110621/wl_uk_afp/britaineconomylabourpensions_20110621072517
The women who sought to sue Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) for gender bias on behalf of 1.5 million co-workers said they will press their fight against the nation’s largest private employer in smaller lawsuits in lower courts and claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday said the women failed to prove the world’s largest retailer had a nationwide policy that led to gender discrimination. The court deprived them of the leverage a nationwide suit brings, both in pooled legal resources and a potential multibillion-dollar verdict, forcing them to pursue claims on their own.
“When I go back to work tomorrow, I’m going to let them know we are still fighting,” said Christine Kwapnoski, an assistant manager at a Sam’s Club in Concord, California. She had accused a male manager of yelling at female employees and telling her to “doll up” by wearing more makeup and dressing better while working on a loading dock.
Wal-Mart may now face thousands of lawsuits nationwide and claims of discrimination before federal agencies as plaintiffs’ lawyers fan out to courts across the country to file new complaints on behalf of members of the failed group suit.
Kwapnoski and others pressing their suit claimed they were victimized by Wal-Mart’s practice of letting local managers make subjective decisions about pay and promotions. More than 100 employees filed sworn statements saying they were paid less and given fewer opportunities for promotion than male colleagues.
Women seeking advancement were required to commit in writing to overnight shifts for two years, while men were only required to rotate through such positions on a six-month basis, one former worker claimed.
(For a related story on the Supreme Court ruling’s impact on class action litigation, click here. To read a story on how it may affect defenses against employee claims, click here. For a story on how the decision may affect company bias policies, click here.)
When one woman inquired about the higher wages paid to men who had the same or less seniority, she was told that “retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money,” and “he has a family to support,” according to one declaration by a former Wal-Mart employee in Florida.
Wal-Mart said yesterday that the high court ruling “effectively ends this class-action lawsuit.”
“As the majority made clear, the plaintiffs’ claims were worlds away from showing a companywide pay and promotion policy,” Wal-Mart, led by Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke, said in a statement.
Wal-Mart rose 25 cents to $53.29 in New York Stock Exchange trading.
The workers “provide no convincing proof of a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. All nine justices voted to overturn a lower-court ruling that approved the class action, with four of them saying they would have ordered further proceedings.
Betty Dukes, another lead plaintiff who began working at a Pittsburg, California-based Wal-Mart store in 1994, said she noticed early in her career that “it was not balanced” when it came to promotions.
“The men at my store were being promoted more often than the woman for the same positions, and many of those positions were never openly posted,” she said in a telephone interview. Promotion opportunities were disclosed by management, which was predominantly male, she said.
Filed in 2001, the suit aimed to cover every woman who worked at the retailer’s Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club’s stores at any point since December 1998, including those not hired until years after the suit was filed. A federal appeals court had let the suit go forward on behalf of women who were working at Wal-Mart at the time the suit was filed.
More than 20 companies supported Wal-Mart at the Supreme Court, including Intel Corp. (INTC), Altria Group Inc. (MO), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and General Electric Co. (GE)
The Supreme Court ruling limits the ability of plaintiffs’ lawyers to win multimillion-dollar damages through a single lawsuit, particularly against employers. Units of Cigna Corp. (CI), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Bayer AG (BAYN), Toshiba Corp. (6502), Publicis Group SA, Deere & Co. (DE) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) all face gender discrimination complaints that seek class-action status.
Four justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — said they would have returned the case to a lower court and let the workers try to press a class action using a different legal theory.
The lead attorneys for the plaintiffs are Joseph Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Brad Seligman of the Impact Fund, which describes itself as a foundation that handles public interest litigation.
They said they would seek a way around the Supreme Court ruling, moving ahead with claims on behalf of aggrieved workers, either as individuals or as part of smaller groups.
“This case is not over,” said Seligman. “Wal-Mart is not off the hook. There are thousands of claims of discrimination that remain to be filed.”
The case was one of the most closely watched Supreme Court business disputes in years, in part because the justices hadn’t looked at the standards for certifying a class-action suit in more than a decade.
Women’s advocates called on Congress to enact new legislation protecting the rights of female workers in light of the high court decision.
“With this decision, the Supreme Court has assisted Wal- Mart in its efforts to systematically dole out promotions and pay raises on the basis of sex,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.
Washington Protest
At a protest against the ruling today in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, about 100 demonstrators called for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation intended to address pay inequity issues tied to gender.
Allison Grady, a protester with the Feminists Majority Foundation, said the demonstrators “wanted to be able to show that we were standing with the women of Wal-Mart.”
White House spokesman Jay Carney yesterday declined to comment on the case, while saying President Barack Obama supports proposed federal legislation to ensure pay equity for women in the workplace.
“We still are determined to go forward to present our case in court,” said Dukes, the lead named plaintiff in the case. “We believe we will prevail there.”
She and her co-plaintiffs alleged the world’s biggest retailer discriminated against them on the basis of their sex by denying them equal pay or promotions, in violation of 1964 civil rights law. The court didn’t rule the company discriminated.
Stephanie Odle, 39, who initiated the lawsuit after being fired from a Sam’s Club in 1999, said yesterday was a “great day” for big business.
“It shows how the legal system works,” Odle said in a telephone interview. “But I know in my heart that I made a difference. I didn’t get the outcome we wanted, but the minute that we filed the lawsuit, we started getting changes in pay and promotions.”
Odle was working as an assistant manager in a Sam’s Club in Lubbock, Texas, when she was fired.
“They trumped up a charge and terminated me to give the job to a man,” she claimed.
Odle now owns her own business in Norman, Oklahoma. She was one of the original six plaintiffs who pursued the class action against Wal-Mart. She was dropped as a named plaintiff after a lower court decided all the class representatives needed to be from California.
Odle said she worked for Sam’s Club for eight years, in stores in several states.
“I’ve seen the discrimination, no matter what state you’re in, no matter what region,” she said. “I gave up my right to sue individually” while the class action was pending, Odle said. “Now I go back and sue them individually.”
“We had prepared for a whole range of options,” attorney Sellers said in an interview. “We began weeks ago preparing thousands of charges to be filed with the EEOC,” referring to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which pursues workplace claims on behalf of employees.
Lawyers for the woman will try to pursue “some more narrowly drawn, tailored classes,” the lawyer said. “The case becomes splintered. You end up with multiple cases where Wal- Mart’s practices are being challenged.”
Federal lawsuits and claims before the EEOC won’t be stopped by the statute of limitations, which places a time limit on lawsuits, he said, because it was delayed while the proposed class action was pending.
Sellers and co-counsel Seligman said they would be pursuing individual actions against the company, and possibly smaller class actions.
They may also go back to the federal court in San Francisco where the claim was originally filed, seeking a narrowly drawn case of California plaintiffs, he said, and bringing lawsuits with different arguments in different jurisdictions.
“This will be a multi-front sort of battle,” he said. “There are a number of options still available — none of them are as efficient” as a nationwide class action.
Since class action litigation is prosecuted on a contingency fee basis — lawyers get paid when the client wins – – lawyers for the plaintiffs said they will continue to finance the litigation.
“We’re in it to see this thing to a successful conclusion,” Sellers said, adding that $3 million in expenses have already been paid. “Millions of dollars in attorneys fees have been expended and we haven’t been paid a penny.”
The cost of defending thousands of lawsuits in hundreds of courthouses may be expensive for Wal-Mart as well.
“Wal-Mart may regret the day” it sought a rejection of class certification, Seligman said. “Wal-Mart is not off the hook.”
The case is Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, 10-00277, U.S. Supreme Court (Washington).
Seven women say they were beaten up by a group of men all dressed in black after they went to Beijing from Gansu Province’s Hui County to allege corruption over earthquake relief funds.
The women published an online post yesterday in a microblog on weibo.com to tell of their humiliating experience on April 27 by the men who beat them, stripped them down to their underwear in public, and sent them back to Hui County in a van overnight without even allowing them to use the toilet during a journey which was many hours long.
One witness, who described himself as a retired soldier in his 80s, wrote on the microblog: “When I saw them beating the women, I scolded them for acting like bandits. It was the most horrible, shameful, and barbarous scene I have ever seen in my life.”
In a telephone interview, 43-year-old Liu Xiuhua, one of the seven women, told Shanghai Daily they had arrived at the Dunhuang Plaza in Beijing at 3pm on April 27 planning to report a number of county officials for corruption involving relief funds released after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which also affected Gansu.
After 30 minutes waiting at the entrance of the Gansu provincial government’s Beijing office in the plaza, more than 20 men arrived in two vans and demanded that they get into the vehicles.
“The office said they were policemen, but we saw some of them with tattoos all over their bodies,” said Liu.
The men dragged an 80-year-old women into the van and stripped the clothing off four others in the plaza, in front of several male security guards and office workers, said Liu.
“They kicked and punched us for over 30 seconds before we were all thrown into the van,” Liu said. “Then the engine started, I was sitting beside a woman who was beaten into a coma and the leader of the men kept punching and scolding us.”
She didn’t know how long it took them to arrive at their hometown in Hui County, but when they arrived, it was already nightfall on April 28.
During the long journey, the van made no stops to allow the women to use the toilet, Liu said.
According to the women’s online post, the van dropped the women off at Hui County’s police bureau.
The policemen there took no action against the men but just watched them leave.
Of the local police and county officials, Liu said: “They told us that ‘you deserve this’ and said the case was closed.”
Another woman, Wang Caihong, supported Liu’s account on the microblog.
One of the victims had a broken leg and others suffered bruising to their bodies.
Officials with the Hui County government could not be reached yesterday.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7394788.html
KAMPALA, Uganda – Ugandan activists are marching to the constitutional court to sue over the deaths of two pregnant women who they say died because they did not pay adequate bribes to government medical workers.
Lawyer Nuur Nakibuuka Musisi said Friday they are also demanding basic services for pregnant women. Government hospitals are supposed to provide free care.
Valente Inziku says nurses refused to treat his wife, who was in labor, even after he gave them the 10,000 shillings (about $4) they asked for. He says in an affidavit that nurses ignored her cries of pain for more than eight hours before she died, late last year. The baby also died.
Friday’s protest follows several opposition-led marches — some of which have turned violent — over government corruption and rising food and fuel costs.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110527/ap_on_re_af/af_uganda_pregnancy_deaths_1
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government hoped to increase the number of women in its workforce by 55% come 2015, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman.
Musa said better access to higher learning has helped to empower more women and they has been seen to move to higher-paying jobs.
“Currently, women make up 47% of the workforce in Sabah, as compared to 30.8% in 2000.
“Flexible working hours is one of several issues discussed at the government’s Strategic Reforms Initiatives laboratories, aimed at encouraging more women to take part in the Economic Transformation Programme,” he said at the centennial anniversary of the International Women’s Day celebration and Parent’s Day recently.
Musa said he also hoped to see an increased representation of women in the local business scene.
“Women have proven to be good money managers and are generally better at repaying loans hence they can be successful when they venture into business.
“In Sabah, the women are just as able and have demostrated their ability to play a leading role. We have a number of women as elected representatives, in senior government posts and even a minister,” he said.
Musa was happy that there were a number of successful women in the fields of property, hospitality, wellness and pharmaceuticals.
He also acknowledged women had taken leading roles in NGOs, professional and charitable organisations.
“Their innate multi-tasking talents demand respect. I would like to take this opportunity to call on women-led organisations to reach out to those in rural areas who may need guidance in becoming effective players in the state’s development.
“I hope they will also offer help to women and children who fall victim to domestic abuse and other forms of violence, including human trafficking,” he said.
Later, Musa announced that the state would contribute RM100,000 to sponsor the International Women’s Day Celebration here.
“It is fitting that we take the opportunity to celebrate the countless achievements of women in Malaysia.
“In today’s world, women are considered co-developers of a nation and achieving gender equality is necessary in the social, economic and political sphere,” he said.
http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2011/5/30/southneast/8783339&sec=southneast
DHAKA (AFP) – A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man’s penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of Bangladesh said Monday.
The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Dhaka, on Saturday night, officers said.
“As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime,” police chief Abul Khaer told AFP.
The woman has filed a case accusing the man — who is also 40 and a married father of five — of attempted rape, saying that he had been harassing her for six months.
The severed penis has been kept at the police station and the rape suspect was undergoing treatment in hospital.
“We shall arrest him once his condition gets better,” Khaer added.
Dr. Seham Sergewa distributed a questionnaire to 70,000 Libyan families living in refugee camps after being driven from their homes, originally to measure how traumatized children were from the fighting, the AP reports. The 59,000 responses she received begin to quantify the full extent of the horror suffered.
10,000 people suffering post-traumatic stress, 4,000 children with psychological problems. Then came the unexpected: 259 women said they had been raped by militiamen loyal to Muammar Qaddafi.
Sergewa’s survey originally did not ask about rape, but when women began approaching her, she added a question about rape on the survey. Some of the women described the attacks to her in terrifying detail, such as a woman in Misrata who said she was raped in front of her four children after Qaddafi fighters burned down her home. And although 259 women came forward, Sergewa believes the numbers is many times higher as women are afraid to report the attacks.
It’s not unusual for rape to be used as a weapon of war, but this is one of the first indications of the extent it has been used in Libya, since Iman al-Obeidi burst into the hotel housing foreign journalists in Tripoli in March and accused pro-Qaddafi militiamen of gang-raping her. Despite her story and reports of condoms and Viagra found in the pockets of dead Qaddafi solders, some have found the evidence of a concerted rape campaign thin. Doctors in Benghazi said they had heard of women being raped but had not treated any. A consultant for Human Rights Watch reportedly said that the organization has learned of “a few credible cases of gender based violence and rape, but the evidence is not there at this point to suggest it is of a systematic nature, or an official policy. On Viagra and condom distribution we have nothing so far.”
But these new testimonies indicate widespread trauma behind a heavy code of silence. Another doctor reported testing victims for AIDs “who were terrified their families would find out.” Some victims have already been abandoned by their husbands, while others fear seeking treatment will result in retribution from spouses or banishment. Dr. Sergewa said of the 140 rape survivors she personally interviewed, not one could she persuade to prosecute.
After previous denials by military officials, a senior Egyptian general has admitted to CNN that “virginity tests” were conducted on female demonstrators arrested in Tahrir Square.
During a March 9, nearly a month after Hosni Mubarak resigned, the Egyptian military targeted the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, arresting nearly 149 people. An Amnesty International report published weeks later claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges, and forced to submit to virginity checks.
Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or “virginity tests.” Now, a senior Egyptian general who asked not to be identified admits that “virginity checks” were performed, and his defense of the practice reveals a disturbingly bleak attitude towards women. “The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general said. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”
He then offered the bizarre rationale that the virginity checks were done so that the women would not later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” the general said. “None of them were (virgins).” He did not further explain this confounding logic.
Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described how she and 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution. “The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public,” Amnesty reported.
LOWER MANHATTAN, NY (PIX11) — An angry crowd of roughly 400 gathered outside Manhattan’s Criminal Court on Centre Street Friday to protest the not-guilty verdict of Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata, the two NYPD officers who were acquitted on felony rape charges yesterday.
“We are here to say rape is not ok,” chanted protestors. “NYPD shame on you.”
Other chants included, “Why a victim wouldn’t trust the justice system. Look no further than the acquittal of NYPD officers Moreno and Mata.”
Moreno and Mata were only found guilty of three counts each of official misconduct — for entering their accuser’s apartment three times back in 2008.
Friday’s rally exploded in size and popularity overnight over Facebook.
Once the non-guilty rape verdict of now fired officers came down, activist Lori Adelman started a Facebook page, called “Protest The Acquittal Of Officer Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata.”
In less than 24 hours, her planned protest had 1400 followers.
“People are just so angry and infuriated because the evidence seemed so overwhelming in this case,” said Adelman.
This wasn’t the only protest that surfaced today.
Outside city hall, city leaders explained their frustration with the not guilty verdict.
“As a former criminal defense attorney I recognize the verdict yesterday demonstrated the imperfections of the system,” said New York Councilwoman Latisha James
Both officers were fired Thursday after they were found guilty of official misconduct.
Commissioner Ray Kelly stood by the department’s actions to terminate the officers.
“The jury has spoken.”
But protesters say firing is not enough. They want Commissioner Kelly to implement new sexual assault and anti-rape policies within the department.
“We want him to respond one week from today,” said Adelman.
http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-rape-cop-verdict-protests-planned-20110526,0,6007537.story
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas legislators approved restrictions on private insurance coverage for abortions and adopted a state budget stripping funds from a Planned Parenthood affiliate, capping a string of victories Friday for abortion opponents only four months after sympathetic Gov. Sam Brownback took office.
This year, five major proposals favored by abortion opponents cleared the GOP-dominated Legislature as members heeded a call from Brownback to create “a culture of life.” But Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, the target of much of lawmakers’ efforts, confirmed that it is consulting with attorneys over possible legal challenges
“Four or five anti-choice bills, as we would characterize them, is pretty significant,” said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “It would be in the top tier of anti-choice legislatures, which is probably what Brownback wants.”
Brownback, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill sent to him by the state House a mere 15 minutes before lawmakers adjourned their annual session. The House’s early-morning vote was 86-30 in support of a larger bill that included the abortion coverage restrictions. The state Senate had approved it Thursday night, 28-10.
The measure prohibits insurance companies from offering coverage of abortions as part of their general health plans, except when a woman’s life is at risk. If the bill becomes law as expected, starting in July, individuals and employers who want abortion coverage would have to buy supplemental policies that cover only abortion.
Supporters of the bill argue that it will protect employers who oppose abortion rights from having to pay for policies that cover the procedures. The legislation also says that no state or federally administered health-insurance exchange in Kansas established under last year’s federal health care overhaul law can offer coverage for abortions, other than to save a woman’s life.
The $13.8 billion budget approved by legislators, also early Friday, includes a provision diverting about $330,000 in federal family planning funds away from Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri to public hospitals and health departments. The group’s top executive warned that it will be forced to reduce services dramatically at clinics in Hays and Wichita that don’t perform abortions without affecting one in the Kansas City suburbs that terminates pregnancies.
Brownback already has signed legislation to tighten restrictions on late-term abortions and require doctors to obtain written permission from parents before terminating minors’ pregnancies. Legislators also have sent him a bill to impose new health and safety standards specifically for abortion clinics, which the governor plans to sign Monday.
“Governor Brownback has never been shy about the fact that he’s pro-life,” spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said.
Kathy Ostrowski, legislative director for the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, said the state’s new laws will protect women who seek abortions from dangerous clinics and provide more accurate reporting by doctors about their activities.
“It has obviously been a good session,” Ostrowski said after lawmakers adjourned.
Democratic Govs. Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson, who held the office before Brownback, blocked most major changes in Kansas abortion laws, vetoing legislation that is becoming law this year.
“There’s clearly a message here that women are dispensable,” said state Rep. Annie Kuether, a Topeka Democrat and one of the Legislature’s shrinking number of abortion rights supporters. “I’m sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.”
The measures in Kansas are part of a wave of anti-abortion legislation across the nation, as abortion opponents have been encouraged by the election of new Republican governors last year and conservative legislators.
The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization supporting abortion rights, says Kansas and Missouri are among seven states now with restrictions on private health insurance coverage of abortion. Also, a dozen states, including Kansas, restrict coverage in health exchanges.
Planned Parenthood officials say moves to strip funds from affiliates are afoot in at least five other states; one in Indiana has filed a lawsuit there.
“Why would we want to continue to give Planned Parenthood tax dollars to ostensibly prevent pregnancy, when they make even more money performing abortions when that ‘prevention’ fails?” said Mary Kay Culp, Kansans for Life’s executive director.
But Brownlie said the Planned Parenthood clinics offer a wide range of services, including thousands of breast exams and tests for sexually transmitted diseases each year. The federal dollars account for about 10 percent of the budget for its Kansas operations, he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/13/kansas-abortion-bill-law_n_861525.html
In the latest example of how difficult it has become for women in their late twenties and early thirties to find an eligible man in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, a dating agency has started sending busloads of single women out to country towns, where the ratio of men to women is far more favourable.
The weekend tours, named Thank Goodness He’s A Country Boy, involve eight hours of intensive speed dating at a country pub, where lonely farmers are introduced to single city girls.
Brie Petersen came up with the idea after visiting friends in the rural town of Mungindi in Queensland. During a night at the pub, the owner told her that he regularly received letters from single women in Brisbane and Sydney asking him to set them up with farmers. Similar pleas were being sent to the post office, he said.
“These women obviously needed help, it was simply a matter of putting the two groups in the same place,” Miss Petersen said.
The first tour, which took 50 Sydney women to the rural town of Tamworth was a success, with an “85 per cent pick up rate”, she said. More trips for the single women of Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth are on the cards.
The tours are the latest symptoms of the chronic gender unbalance in metropolitan and rural areas, which has already spawned a highly popular reality television programme, The Farmer Wants A Wife. The programme matches single women with farmers from far-flung parts of the country and after six series it has generated four marriages and three babies.
Bernard Salt, demographer and author of Man Drought, said the programme and the tours were so successful because over the past four decades young women had fled Australia’s rural towns and communities.
“The farmer does want a wife because there’s no single sheilas in the nearby towns,” he said. While women in the 1960s would marry a local man after finishing school, they now head off to the city in search of work, leaving the men behind, he said.
“As soon as that 18 year old girl leaves she upsets the gender balance in the town, because there are not enough marriageable women, and she also upsets the gender balance in Sydney because there is an oversupply of women in the inner city suburbs.
“The problem is writ large in Australia which is sparsely populated and vast so you get a shift like this and it makes a huge impact.” But for 29-year-old Sydney woman Bianca Wignall, one of Ms Petersen’s clients, it is a matter of quality, as well as quantity.
“Country men are more gentlemanly, they hold the door open for you and if they see you with an empty glass they will be the first to offer to get you a drink, they are more attentive.”
PALAKKAD: Various tribes and social organisations in Attappady have come out against the decision of the State government on Wednesday to provide one acre (0.4 hectare) of land and a monthly pension of Rs.1,000 to unwed tribal mothers.
Eswari Reshan, district panchayat member, said on Thursday that the decision was “an insult not only to tribal women but also to womanhood.”
She said some tribal women had come to her protesting against the reopening of old issues, saying that to get financial assistance, they were being forced to file cases against the men who had deserted them. Doing so would aggravate the stigma they faced for giving birth out of wedlock.
Rather than give relief, she said, the government should bring to book the men who had deserted the women after having a child or two. Some women had been abandoned by men who had legally married them. The relief announced would only encourage those who wanted to exploit women.
Ms. Reshan said the government should enforce the law against such cheating and exploitation. Provision of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should be invoked.
On the government’s promise of land, Ms. Reshan said most unwed mothers owned two acres to five acres of land, but had no resources to cultivate it. The government should fund cultivation and offer employment and educational opportunities.
‘Atrocities will go up’
P.R.G. Mathur, expert in tribal affairs and former Director of the Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (KIRTADS), said the government’s decision would promote atrocities on tribal women, besides being an insult to them and womanhood.
Would the government apply the same yardstick to unwed mothers of other communities in various parts of the State, he asked.
Dr. Mathur said the government’s duty was to implement the law and bring the culprits to book. The men, not the government, should be made to pay for the crime.
He cited examples from Madhya Pradesh of men who had ditched tribal women being brought before the law and made to marry the victims and look after their family.
He said that Kerala government should immediately conduct a survey on unwed mothers in tribal areas.
M. Sukumaran, president, Attappady Samrakshana Samithi (protection committee), said no civilised society could accept the government’s decision, as it went against the law of the land.
http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/27/stories/2011052758170600.htm
BERHAMPUR: The State government continues to provide Rs. 200 per month to widows, physically challenged and the aged as pension in this era of inflation when a cup of tea costs more than Rs. 2 at roadside kiosks.
The State government has named the pension scheme as ‘Madhu Babu Pension Yojana’. It is an irony that the beneficiaries do not get this amount every month. They are provided this allowance in bulk in four or six months. Both beneficiaries and social activists feel the pension amount is too meagre and it needs enhancement. “We feel it should be hiked so that the beneficiaries should feel they are getting a respectable assistance from the State government rather than alms,” said farmer leader Kailash Sadangi. In several other States amount provided through similar pension schemes is more. According to State secretariat member of CPI(M), in West Bengal beneficiaries of similar pension scheme get Rs.1,000, in Andhra Pradesh it is Rs. 500, in Kerala it is Rs. 750 and in Tripura the beneficiaries get Rs. 1,000 per month. “When the government could hike salary and perks of MLAs to around Rs. 60,000 per month in this poverty stricken State, no one in the government is thinking of providing a respectable succour to the poor beneficiaries of Madhu Babu Pension Yojana,” he said.
In the State the HIV positive persons are considered physically challenged and are also included under the Madhu Babu Pension Yojana. Some HIV positive beneficiaries say the amount they get under this pension scheme helps them travel to Berhampur for medical needs or to buy subsidised rice provided through the Public Distribution System (PDS). “The monthly pension is so low that the beneficiaries do not want to get it through cheque every month as they would lose more money for their encashmen,” said Soudamini Rath, social activist involved in rehabilitation of HIV positive persons.
Mr Sadangi also alleged that during disbursement of money to beneficiaries in rural areas, the local touts and panchayat members deduct a sum from the pension amount. “The money that these poor people get serves as pocket money for some and most prefer to buy their quota of subsidised PDS rice with it,” he said. According to him the meagre sum of Rs. 200 per month never helps in enhancing economic security of the beneficiaries as claimed by the scheme.
http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/25/stories/2011052561120300.htm
A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday.
Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca.
While there, he passed his victim’s mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out “How’s your daughter?”, before heading into a crowded bar.
Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out.
The woman fled to Alicante, where she was arrested the same evening. When she appeared in court the next day in the town of Orihuela, she was cheered and clapped by a crowd, who shouted “Bravo!” and “Well done!”
A judge ordered her to be held in prison and undergo psychiatric tests, provoking anger from friends and neighbours, who have set up a petition calling for her release.
Soriano suffered 60 per cent burns in the attack on June 13 and was airlifted to a specialist unit. He survived for 11 days before succumbing to his injuries.
It is understood that the woman, who cannot be named because of laws safeguarding the identity of rape victims, claims to have no recollection of the attack which took place in the Bar Mary, just 300 yards from the family home.
As decorators painted over the blackened walls of his bar last week, Antonio Ferrendez Lopez told how Soriano had walked in at lunchtime.
“The place was packed with people eating. I was sitting at a table and Soriano was standing at the bar very close to me when the woman walked in,” he said. “She didn’t acknowledge anyone but walked up to Soriano, who was drinking a coffee, put her hand on his shoulder and turned him round to face her.
“Then she pulled the bottle she was carrying from under her arm and began to tip it over him. At first I didn’t realise what was happening, but then I smelt the petrol. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but when she struck a match I got clear.
“The petrol was in a pool around Soriano, and she threw the match into it. It ignited with a whoosh, and he screamed and staggered about covered in flames. As people rushed outside to escape the flames, she just looked at him, then turned and walked away.”
Customers helped Mr Lopez put out the fire with extinguishers and doused Soriano with water until paramedics arrived.
Soriano’s attack on the woman’s teenage daughter took place in 1998. The girl was going to buy a loaf of bread when Soriano snatched her from the street, threatened her with a knife and raped her. Her mother is said to have suffered mental illness ever since.
Soriano was convicted of the rape and ordered to serve 13 years in jail. The sentence was later reduced to nine years on appeal.
The woman’s lawyer, Joaquín Galant, told The Sunday Telegraph last night: “The family has suffered a double tragedy. First the attack on their daughter and now this. Both the father and his daughter would like to express their sadness at the death of Soriano.”
Earlier, Mr Galant said that the woman did not deserve to be kept in prison. “For seven years she has been deeply affected by what was done to her daughter,” he said. “This man, fresh from prison and asking how her daughter was, might be considered to have provoked her.”
Women who do routine jobs such as cleaners are almost six times more likely to die from alcohol abuse than women in better paid roles, according to new government research.
The report by the Office for National Statistics found cleaners, sewing machinists and bar staff face 5.7 times greater risk of fatal liver disease, mental disorders and poisoning than doctors and lawyers.
This was despite richer women downing almost twice as much alcohol, the study finds.
Meanwhile men who worked as van drivers and labourers have a three and a half times bigger threat of meeting a similar fate than than those in higher managerial and professional work.
The new report is the first analysis of the social inequalities in adult alcohol-related mortality in England and Wales in the last decade as measured by the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC).
A year ago an ONS report found professional and managerial women are downing almost twice as much alcohol as the lower paid.
They are drinking an average of 10.2 units a week – more than a bottle of wine – compared with 6.5 units for manual workers.
Statistician Myer Glickman, whose team compiled the latest findings, said: ‘They are an apparent contradiction but it could be down to a number of factors.
‘One could be there are other things affecting people’s health such as whether they are smokers or have a poorer diet which may make them more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol.
‘Also patterns of drinking may be different, such as binge drinking on particular types or brands of alcohol rather than drinking similar or even greater amounts but over a longer period of time.
‘The greater difference between male and female social groups could also be down to the fact that professional women in general are particularly advantaged when it comes to good health.’
The most alcohol related deaths occurred in males aged between 50 and 54 with routine jobs (52.2 per 100,000). For women it was for those in routine work and age 45 to 49 (42 per 100,000).
For the less advantaged groups, alcohol-related mortality peaked in middle age and then declined, whereas for managers and professionals, the risk of mortality increased steadily the older they got.
The report said this means alcohol-related deaths in the less advantaged groups tend to be younger as well as being more common.
The study also found the number of alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales doubled between 1991 and 2008, rising from 3,415 (6.4 per 100,000 population) in 1991 to 7,344 (12.4 per 100,000) in 2008. But the most recent data in 2009 indicated a drop in alcohol related deaths of 3.3 per cent, to 7,099.
Regionally, the highest mortality rate for men in all occupied classes combined was found in the North West of England (26.9 per 100,000) followed by the North East (23.7), the West Midlands (23.6) and London (21.3).
These areas all had significantly higher mortality rates for all occupied classes combined than England and Wales as a whole, where the figure was 19 per 100,000.
The lowest mortality rate was in the East of England (12.4 per 100,000), half of that seen in the North West. The second lowest was the South West (15.2) followed by the East Midlands and the South East, both 15.5 per 100,000. Similar regional patterns were observed for women, but with lower overall death rates.
Previous survey results have suggested that less advantaged social groups drink less in total than the more advantaged groups.
Therefore the explanation for these inequalities is not a simple one, and may be associated with differences in the detailed patterns of drinking among different groups or with the influence of underlying factors other than alcohol consumption, said the report.
Alcohol-related deaths include only these causes defined as being most directly due to alcohol consumption, such as alcoholic liver disease (accounting for approximately two-thirds of all alcohol-related deaths), fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver, (18 per cent), mental disorders (9 per cent) and accidental alcohol poisoning (3 per cent).
It does not include other diseases where alcohol has been shown to contribute to the risk of death, such as cancers of the mouth, oesophagus and liver. It also excludes deaths from accidents and violence where alcohol may have played a part.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1390829/Women-low-paid-jobs-times-likely-die-alcohol-abuse.html#ixzz1NVlNd5j5
A class action suit alleging that Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals discriminated against women employees has been expanded to include female pharmaceutical sales representatives and all women in Bayer HealthCare’s Consumer Care unit — groups who weren’t originally included in a gender bias complaint filed earlier this year against the drug giant.
In an amended complaint filed Wednesday in federal court in New Jersey, lawyers for the women said the sales representatives were paid less and not promoted as often as male peers while the women in the consumer care division were sexually harassed by Bayer executives and the company ignored their requests for help.
The original complaint, filed in March in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., by six current and former female Bayer HealthCare employees on behalf of other women at the company, seeks $100 million in lost salary and benefits. It alleges Bayer executives were openly hostile to women — especially pregnant women, working mothers and women who took maternity leaves.
Bayer HealthCare, based in New Jersey, is a division of Bayer Corp., a German company with its U.S. headquarters in Robinson.
In a statement, Bayer denied the allegations, pledged to defend itself and said it is “committed strongly to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal treatment for all employees.”
In the amended complaint, Natalie Celske, a senior sales consultant, said that in 2009 she was replaced in a district trainer position based in Boise, Idaho, by a male colleague who had lower sales results and lower overall performance. When she asked a manager why, he replied that the male candidate was “more into [the man’s] career path, not yours.”
Since then, the male supervisor has declined to consider her for any promotions and exhibits hostile behavior to her compared with how he treats male employees, the complaint said.
In a portion of the complaint that broadens the gender bias allegations to the consumer care division, Vera Santangelo, a financial specialist in that unit, said that despite several exceptional performance awards, she received less pay than male colleagues and was subjected to sexual harassment and retaliation for reporting the harassment.
Ms. Santangelo alleged a senior attorney for Bayer HealthCare repeatedly made comments about her body and her attire and once made an inappropriate comment to her during an elevator ride.
She sought help from an on-site counselor and reported the incident to a company hotline, Bayer’s corporate ombudsman and an official in human resources, the complaint said.
When the harassment did not stop, according to the complaint, she confided in her manager who “dismissed or diminished her concerns and … made it seem like the sexual harassment she was experiencing was her fault or her problem.”
In a subsequent performance review, the complaint said, her manager said she was “too emotional” and threatened to lower her rating, which could prevent her from receiving a pay raise and make her ineligible for future promotions. She is currently on a short-term medical leave related to stress caused by the harassment, the complaint said.
DENVER – The family of missing 19-year-old Kenia Monge has been contacted by six women in the past six weeks, all claiming they were drugged at different lower downtown Denver nightclubs.
Two of those women are convinced they were slipped a drug at the 24K Lounge, the Lodo nightclub where Kenia Monge’s friends last her saw her alive in the early morning hours of April 1, 2011.
“My heart just fell to my feet,” one woman told FOX31 Denver after seeing Kenia’s story on the news.
The women, who are afraid to be identified, say they are speaking publicly for one reason, saying “if our story can help somebody else, it will be worth it.”
The women say the incident happened July 3, when they arrived at 24K Lounge.
They say they hadn’t had anything to drink and were sober, and they claim as soon as they got to the bar a man they didn’t know bought them each one shot of alcohol. A few minutes later, they were both incapacitated.
“My body just started giving out,” one woman said.
The other woman claims she wandered away from the bar and was found by a relative who just happened to be driving by.
“My legs gave out,” she said. “I was laying in the street.”
The women say the man who bought them the shot tried to take one of them home, but their friend intervened.
“I feel like we were lucky,” she said.
The women reached out to Kenia’s father and mother, Tony and Maria Lee.
The Lee’s now believe Kenia had to have been drugged, too.
“This is what we think happened to Kenia,” Tony said, “she staggered out of the bar and was wandering the streets in no particular direction, doing things she would never do. So there’s no question in my mind.”
A spokesperson for 24K Lounge sent FOX31 Denver a statement, which reads in part:
“We pride ourselves on a safe environment at 24K. We provide both a drug free and safe drinking environment…in eight years of operation we have never received any liquor violations, including those with regard to a minor…Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Kenia Monge.”
The Lee’s are living every parent’s nightmare, not knowing where their daughter is and praying for her safe return.
“I wake up every night at 1am and I start praying and I say, Jesus, please, take care of my baby,” Maria said.
That’s why they want to warn all women to be careful, and don’t end up like Kenia.
The two women who spoke to FOX 31 Denver say they wanted to go the police, but because it took them nearly 24 hours to recover, they thought too much time has elapsed.
Police say this type of crime often goes unreported.
They say that if it happens to you, you need to report it right away.
The person who did it could face drug charges, assault or even sexual assault.
Advocacy groups are considering withdrawing from the missing women inquiry to protest the provincial government’s decision not to fund their participation.
“I think we’ve got to be prepared to walk away,” said Terry Teegee, vice-chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.
His group was granted limited standing at the Wally Oppal-led missing women inquiry that is set to begin next month in Vancouver. The inquiry will investigate the way police and other justice officials handled the disappearance of women from the Downtown Eastside in the 1990s.
Most of the women were – or are presumed – murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton. The DNA of Jackie Murdock, who belonged to one of the CSTC member First Nations, was found at Pickton’s farm.
The council and other groups, including sex-trade workers’ advocates and residents of the Downtown Eastside, are expected to provide valuable insight into marginalized populations at the inquiry.
But the province’s decision to fund only the missing women’s families has Teegee and the others rethinking their participation.
“We don’t have funding for this. We’re a society and we’re lucky if we have any extra funds for something like this, but we don’t,” Teegee said.
In a written statement sent to the media, Attorney General Barry Penner said the line had to be drawn somewhere.
“These continue to be challenging economic times, and there are limits to how many millions of taxpayer dollars we can provide to lawyers representing advocacy groups,” Penner said.
He went on to point out that the province already agreed to fund the less formal study commission that will travel to the North to learn more about the Highway of Tears and its victims, and make recommendations.
A campaign on Facebook is calling for Saudi men to beat women who plan to drive cars in a protest next month, AFP reports.
“The Iqal Campaign: June 17 for preventing women from driving” advocates a cord be used to beat women who plan to drive. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Some 6,000 people have “liked” the campaign on Facebook.
It was created in response to female activist Manal al-Sharif, who created a page calling for Saudi women to defy the driving ban on June 17.
The Facebook page, called “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself,” was removed after more than 12,000 people indicated their support. The campaign’s Twitter account also was deactivated.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women — both Saudi and foreign — from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.
The issue is a highly emotional one in the kingdom, where women are also not allowed to vote, or even travel without their husbands’ or fathers’ permission.
About 800 Saudi people have signed a petition urging Saudi King Abdullah to release al-Sherif and to make a clear statement on women’s right to drive.
“We are fed up,” Waleed Aboul Khair, a lawyer and rights activists said. “Be frank,” he said, addressing the country’s rulers. “For the first time in the history of the kingdom, we have hundreds of people calling for the king to be frank.”
“The society has moved. The society is not silent anymore,” Aboul Khair said.
There is no written Saudi law banning women from driving, only fatwas, or religious edicts, by senior clerics that are enforced by police. King Abdullah has promised reforms in the past and has taken some tentative steps to ease restrictions on women. But the Saudi monarchy relies on Wahhabi clerics to give religious legitimacy to its rule and is deeply reluctant to defy their entrenched power.
NEW YORK – Two police officers were acquitted Thursday of raping a drunken woman they’d been called to help, with a jury convicting them only of misdemeanor official misconduct charges in a case that pitted a stunning claim of police abuse against the officers’ insistence that it simply didn’t happen.
Looking exhausted but relieved as they left court, Officers Franklin Mata and Kenneth Moreno said they felt vindicated by the verdict, though it could send them to jail and immediately got them fired. Moreno called it both “a lesson and a win.”
“My intentions were, from the beginning, just to help her,” Moreno said. He was accused of raping the woman, with Mata serving as a lookout; the two had returned to her apartment three times after an initial call to help her get home. Moreno, 43, said he did so to check on her, at her request, and to counsel her about drinking.
“I made a judgment call … and I paid for it,” he said.
Mata, 29, said he had “been innocent from day one. I’m glad everybody sees that now.”
Jurors, who left court without speaking to reporters, deliberated for about six days before returning the verdict. They found each officer guilty of three official misconduct charges for returning to the woman’s apartment without telling dispatchers or superiors where they were. They face possible sentences from no jail time to a total of two years behind bars at their sentencing, set for June 28.
The police department dismissed them within hours after the verdict; they had been suspended when indicted in 2009. At the time, Commissioner Raymond Kelly had called the allegations “disgraceful” and “a shocking aberration” in the department’s work. Moreno’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had said Thursday before their firing that the two didn’t expect to resume police work.
Besides the rape acquittal, they were acquitted of other charges including burglary and falsifying business records.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement that prosecutors “respect the jury’s verdict, which acknowledges that the defendants’ actions that night not only violated the law, they violated the victim’s rights, and the public’s trust.”
The verdict puzzled and outraged some observers, including women’s advocates. Several activists organize a protest outside the courthouse for Friday evening, while members of the City Council Women’s Caucus and the National Organization for Women planned a news conference Friday afternoon on the City Hall steps.
“Never mind professional behavior, and they’re held to higher standard because they’re police officers — to hear some of the facts in this case that they (the officers) put forward” was disturbing, Councilwoman Rosie Mendez said.
During the trial, prosecutors told a stark story of police misconduct and a perverse abuse of power. The officers acknowledged a number of missteps — including Moreno making a bogus 911 call about a sleeping vagrant as an excuse to return to her building — but said that they weren’t crimes and that the rape allegation was a product of the woman’s muddled memory.
“I thought she made the whole thing up,” Moreno said Thursday, adding later that “she was mistaken or confused.”
The officers were called to help the woman get out of a taxi on Dec. 7, 2008. A fashion product developer who’s now 29, the woman had gotten very drunk while out with friends celebrating her impending promotion and move to California.
The woman testified that she passed out and awoke to being raped in her apartment. Moreno told jurors that he lay alongside her in her bed for a while but that they didn’t have sex. Mata said he was napping in the living room while the others were in the bedroom.
While she acknowledged during days of testimony that her memory of the night was spotty, she said that she acutely remembered the rape, and that other vivid snippets — police radio chatter, flashlights, the same man’s voice urging her to drink water in her bathroom and later asking her if she wanted him to stay in her bedroom — made her certain that her attacker was an officer.
“I couldn’t believe that two officers who had been called to help me had, instead, raped me,” said the woman, who has sued the city seeking $57 million over the incident. Her lawyer didn’t immediately return a call Thursday.
After consulting prosecutors, she secretly recorded a conversation with Moreno a few days later. He alternately denied they had sex and seemed to admit it, particularly by saying twice that he’d used a condom when she asked him.
Moreno told jurors he was just “telling her what she wanted to hear” because she had suggested she’d go into the stationhouse where he worked and make a scene. He has been a police officer for about 20 years.
No DNA evidence was collected in the case, and experts debated whether an internal mark found during an examination of the woman could be interpreted as a sign of rape.
Moreno said he was only trying to console and counsel the woman about drinking during his series of visits, as he shared his own struggle with alcoholism some years before, killed a cockroach in her bathroom, made plans to have breakfast with her and sang to her a verse of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
On the last visit, Moreno said, he suddenly found himself fending off drunken advances from the woman.
“I told her, `There’s another time for this. Not tonight.’ … I kind of had her by the shoulders, and I said, `We’re not doing this,'” he told jurors.
But, he said, he wound up in her bed after she fell and got stuck between her bed and a wall and needed to be freed. He said he stayed there “snuggling” with her for a time, out of sympathy, but kept his uniform on and didn’t have sex with her.
Mata, a police officer for about five years, acknowledged during his testimony that he couldn’t be sure what had happened between the two while he was snoozing on the woman’s sofa. But he said he didn’t believe Moreno had raped the woman because “Ken wouldn’t do something like that.”
He was charged with rape under state legal principles that hold an alleged accessory as responsible for a crime as the main defendant.
Asked whether the official misconduct conviction was a disappointment, Mata lawyer Edward Mandery said, “We’ll deal with it.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110526/ap_on_re_us/us_nypd_rape_complaint
Traditional households with a husband and wife raising their children are no longer the majority in South Carolina.
Of the state’s 1.8 million households, 47.2 percent are made of a husband and wife living under the same roof, according to the 2010 Census statistics. Ten years ago, there were 1.5 million households in the state, and 51.1 percent of them were headed by a married man and woman.
South Carolina is following a trend that has spread across the nation. The traditional concept of a family is changing, whether it’s single parents raising children, gay couples sharing a home or men and women who move in together but are not married.
“It just doesn’t exist like it used to,” said Bobby Bowers, director of the S.C. Office of Research and Statistics. “You just can’t believe how much it has changed.”
In Richland County, traditional married couple households fell below the 50 percent mark years ago, while the majority of Lexington County’s households remain a traditional husband-wife set up.
The census statistics do not offer an explanation of why households are changing, and theories abound as to why it is happening. But the change is important to note because family structure affects important decisions such as health insurance coverage, end-of-life decisions, estate planning and child custody, according to the authors of a book about the definition of family, “Counted Out: Same Sex Relations and Americans’ Definitions of Family.”
Lala Carr Steelman, chairman of USC’s sociology department, is one of the book’s co-authors. There are many definitions of family whether they come from scholars, the judicial system or census questionnaires, Steelman said. She and her co-authors wanted to know how Americans defined family and set out to poll them about that question.
“What we’re finding is people are growing increasingly more flexible in how they define what a family is,” she said. “The main thing is alternative family forms are expanding at a very high rate and acceptance of them is expanding.”
Pop culture is contributing to the acceptance with television shows like Modern Family, which features an extended family that includes a multicultural marriage, a traditional husband-wife family of five and a gay couple raising a daughter.
In tracking acceptance of gay families, the authors addressed 11 other types of living arrangements.
“There’s more of a menu to choose from,” she said.
All sorts of factors are contributing to the trend of nontraditional households, Steelman said. Widows and widowers are living longer. Young women prefer to stay single as they establish careers. The divorce rate is up. Same-sex marriages are more acceptable as are out-of-wedlock births. And more male and female couples are choosing to live together without getting married, Steelman said.
“It used to be called shacking up, and it was unacceptable so you got married,” she said.
But even traditionally conservative South Carolina is growing more tolerant.
Debi Schadel, 37, and her boyfriend, Derek Riley, 41, have lived together for nine years in their Columbia home. The two moved into together for the same reason married couples do, Schadel said.
Although people constantly ask when will they marry, no one seems to have a problem with the couple’s relationship, Schadel said.
“I tell people that things are going fine the way they are,” she said. “We’re just chugging along.”
Los Angeles County is “ground zero” for the state’s diminishing child population, a statistic that could point to serious problems as the region tries to meet future demand for workers, according to a report released Tuesday.
The number of children between the ages of 5 and 9 in the county decreased by 21% from 2000 to 2010, dropping from 802,047 to 633,690. The average decrease for California was 8.1%, according to the report “Aging in California and Los Angeles County” by USC.
“In the long run … this is really a bad problem because these kids are going to grow up and the ones who are missing [from L.A. County] are likely not going to work here,” said Dowell Myers, one of the report’s authors. “That workforce is going to be in very short supply.
Myers said California’s shrinking child population, reflected in new census figures, is on the “extreme end” of an overall aging U.S. population because of the maturing of the baby boomer generation. One result has been declining student enrollment and the closure of schools.
“There’s just fewer potential parents and that’s part of what’s driving it,” Myers said. “The implications are that we really need to think about building a more supportive environment for families and kids. Our children are a precious and diminishing resource, and they deserve more support.”
Researchers attributed much of the disproportionate local loss to difficult living conditions for families facing high housing costs and high unemployment. The report’s authors also noted findings released by the Brookings Institution in April that showed the greater Los Angeles area was bucking a national trend with a declining Latino child population.
Another finding was that more than half of the state’s population is over age 35, about two years older than the median age of 33.3 in 2000. Additionally, researchers said the number of minors in L.A. County dropped 10% from 2000 to 2010, more than any other area in the state.
A second USC report, “The Changing Household and Family,” released Tuesday said new demographic trends are “changing the meaning of what is a conventional household.”
There were 32% more households with unmarried couples throughout the state in 2010 than a decade earlier. There also was a 17% increase in the number of California homes that have children with single fathers, a surprising statistic because it was a larger increase than the number of homes headed by single mothers.
In L.A. County, there also was a 14% decrease in the number of households with married couples and children from 2000 to 2010, the data showed.
“We’re heading into uncharted territory,” Myers said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0525-usc-report-20110525,0,367814.story
ludmila p 