Zombie "rape insurance" law comes back to life in Michigan

Prayers answered:  abortion opponents won victory when a restrictive law was passed in Texas in October and it was upheld by Supreme Court.  A number of U.S. states have blocked access to abortion.  Photo:AP/Eric Gay.

Moving to Michigan anytime soon? 

If so, and you’re a woman, better take out a rape insurance package just in case.

Yes, rape insurance. Or to put it more broadly, insurance against unintended pregnancy, even one caused by rape or incest.  It’s the latest move by the state’s social conservatives to restrict abortion for poor women (richer ones, naturally, don’t have to worry about lack of coverage.)

The bill, which passed Wednesday, is the product of a bizarre legislative process that allows “citizens’ petitions” in some states to zoom into law even over the heads of the majority of citizens, and in Michigan’s case, the state governor.

Approved by the mainly conservative state legislators, it had already been vetoed by the governor, and polls show that most voters object to it. But the side-step rule meant it could pass veto-free.

When it takes effect in March, it will force women covered by public or private health insurance plans to pay extra for fear that they might suffer an unintended pregnancy, including one that threatens their lives or wellbeing. Its critics have dubbed it “rape insurance.”

The zombie bill sprang back to life courtesy of some 300,000 anti-abortion activists who submitted a petition to the state legislature. Those slapping their foreheads in disbelief should know that most members of the state House and Senate had already signed up before the vote.

Outside the legislature, the bill is supported by only about one-third of Michigan’s voters. Few of them, we’d guess, poor women who would have to ante up at least $400 to terminate a pregnancy without coverage. More than a week’s pay for minimum-waged workers.

“Requiring Michigan women to plan ahead for an unplanned pregnancy is not only illogical,” said a press release from state Senate Minority Leader Grechen Whitmer, “it’s one of the most misogynistic proposals I have ever seen in the Michigan legislature.”

Or other American states. Michigan is the ninth to take the insurance route to restricting abortions. And its new law is only the latest in a long line of barriers that have made the historic Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion almost invalid, except for women with the means to dodge draconian laws in their own states by travelling to more liberal venues.

But here’s the head-scratcher.

Forcing poor (often black or Hispanic) women to have babies may suit the ideology of social conservatives. But what about their economic agenda? That targets poor mothers and children by demanding cuts to food stamps, unemployment insurance and welfare – as well as medical coverage and public education. All that remains is to criminalize the inevitably destitute kids and jail them as soon as possible, raising the already sky-high prison budget.

Poor women, of course, could avoid the whole sad cycle by saying “no sex please, I’m impoverished.” And hoping the rapists get the message.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East, South Asia and the U.S., winning national and international awards.

 

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"Sex Jihad" or Sexy Hoax

A controversial Diesel jeans ad denounced as Islamaphobic by some, as seen in lower Manhattan Sept. 29, 2013. MICHELLE SHEPHARD/ TORONTO STAR

 

It was a sexy sex scandal and like anything shocking these days, it instantly went viral.

Tunisia's Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou claimed women are flocking to Syria to wage "sex jihad." Ben Jeddou made the audacious statement to Tunisia's members of the National Constituent Assembly on September 19, alleging that these women would leave home to have "sexual relations with 20, 30, 100 militants" fighting the regime loyal to President Bashar Assad in Syria. Many would return pregnant.

Various media outlets reported that this idea of "sex jihad" is backed by hardline Salafist clerics. Misogynist edicts are not uncommon in some circles (look no further than Saudi Arabia's top conservative cleric, Sheik Saleh Saad el-Leheidan, who said Friday in endorsing a ban on female drivers, that women will damage their ovaries should they drive) but the most commonly cited reference for "sex jihad" points to a fatwa reportedly issued by Saudi cleric Mohammed al-Arefe - which he denies making.

Further, there are no credible interviews with Tunisian women who were on their way to Syria or had returned pregnant.

So why would Tunisia's interior minister make such a claim, if not true? Foreign Policy Magazine's David Kenner points out that Ben Jeddou campaigns against extremist Salafi groups. "Suggesting that Tunisian Salafi women are sleeping with dozens of Syrian rebels could be another way to discredit them" Kenner writes.

Sometimes when a story is so hard to believe we think, you just can't make this stuff up. Sometimes, however, it appears you can.

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

As India debates gang rapes, a new video wags a satirical finger at women

 

As India grapples with rash of high-profile rapes, crimes that have tarnished the country's image abroad, a Bollywood actress's new video that offers women sage advice about what provocative clothing they should avoid.

The video goes on to show a string of outfits including a black burqa and a spacesuit.

The satirical video, called “It’s your fault," lampoons some of the comments made during the past months, since the gang-rape of a student in Delhi last December stoked international condemnation.

“Scientific studies suggest that women who wear skirts are the leading cause of rape. Do you know why? Because men have eyes,” Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin says in the four-minute video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times and received more than 4,000 comments since it was published on YouTube on September 19.

Politicians and outspoken public figures have sparked anger for a series of controversial comments after the December rape.

Last month, for instance, Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh suggested residents must choose either a “promiscuous culture” that allows public kissing, or a city made safe by “moral policing.”

Singh's comments came after a 22-year-old photographer was gang-raped last month in Mumbai.

“If you are tired of being humiliated by rape, you can always go to the cops and be humiliated by them instead," Koechlin says on the video.

The video ends with various women looking into the camera and saying “it’s my fault."

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Yemen's child brides and a girl named Rawan

 

Young girls shield their faces as they beg on the streets of Sanaa, Yemen, August 2009. MICHELLE SHEPHARD/ TORONTO STAR

 

The story of an 8-year-old Yemeni girl named Rawan who reportedly died on her wedding night of internal injuries has ignited the debate about child brides once again in Yemen.

The story may not be true, and that may not matter.

The fact that it could have happened underscores the horror of child marriages in the impoverished country where families say they are forced to sell their daughters as brides to wealthy older men.

This issue is not new. Nujood Ali famously went to a Sanaa court to ask for a divorce in 2008. She was 10 years old. With the help of Le Figaro writer Delphine Minoui, she later wrote a book about her story: I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

Human rights organizations have covered this issue and specific cases in various reports over the years, but changing the law, and perhaps more importantly, the cultural acceptance of this practice has proved difficult.

Marrying children is still legal in Yemen, although most Yemenis were horrified by reports of Rawan's death and embarrassed their country was making headlines again for such an issue.

In 2009, a law was introduced that raised the minimum age of marriage to 17 but before it was passed conservative parliamentarians and religious leaders managed to argue the legislation was "unIslamic."

In the wake of last week's report on Rawan, Yemen's Human Rights Minister has taken up the fight. Hooria Mashhour  is calling on parliament once again to raise the minimum age.

Sorting fact from fiction is often difficult in Yemen, which is why the story of Rawan remains unclear. Gulf News correspondent Saeed Al-Batati travelled to the northern Yemeni town of Haradh to investigate the story. 

He found that local residents confirm the incident, saying she had been forced to marry a 40-year-old Saudi man and died after sexual intercourse on their wedding night. The girl's father and security officials deny the claim. (Al-Batati writes that a security officer with the Haradh Criminal Investigation was present during his interview with Rawan's father). 

The facts may never be entirely clear.

But as Minister Mashhour said to CNN, "This isn't the first time a child marriage has happened in Yemen, so we should not focus only on this case . . . Many child marriages take place every year in Yemen. It's time to end this practice."

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Indians turn to Hindu goddesses to help fight sexual predators

The Hindu goddess Durga (Save The Children India).

Can three Hindu goddesses help curb the rash of sexual assaults in India?

With the country in a full-blown crisis as each week brings news of another gang rape or despicable sexual assault, the non-profit Save The Children India is out with a new ad campaign that it hopes will prompt some aggressors to think twice. (The ad already has its critics, who argue the posters won't give anyone pause.)

The ads, created by Indian ad agency Taproot and described in a story by India Today, feature Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, learning and the arts; Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity; and Durga, a warrior goddess who is often pictured with a lion, holding a gold trident in one of her eight hands.

The goddesses are shown with black eyes and bruises, cuts on their cheeks, drops of blood tearing down their faces. (The ads creators might have considered depicting Durga using her weapon and lion to get some form of creative revenge on her attacker.)

The Hindu goddess Lakshmi (Save The Children India).

"The challenge that the agency faced was how to create a campaign that hit where it hurts the most?" India Today reports. "Inspiration came from the traditional posters that are seen and worshipped across the country. The idea was to take the images of the goddesses the people prayed to and turn them into something that would shock and bring to attention the reality of domestic violence against women."

The Hindu goddess Saraswati (Save The Children India).

India Today writes that the campaign "simply and effectively captured India's most dangerous contradiction: that of revering women in religion and mythology even as the nation remained incredibly unsafe for its women citizens--remember the December 16 Delhi gangrape and more recently, the Mumbai Shakti Mills gangrape, or the numerous cases of rape that are reported from across the country every day?"

Opinions of the new ads are mixed.

One reader named Padmanabhan Jaikumar writes: "These Bruised, battered... these images of goddesses will have no effect on rapists in India particularly persons like Asaram or Delhi and Mumbai gang rapist. If they get a chance wont hesitate to bruise and  molest a women in front of the Goddess too."

It's hard to say with certainty just how many women in India are forced to deal with the scourge of rape.

As Australian journalist Amanda Hodge points out in a recent column for The Australian newspaper, the India media typically give front-page treatment to the rapes of middle- and upper-class Indians, but more often than not overlook the sexual assaults of lower-class women.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

UK charity: Forced marriage fears? Hide a spoon in your underwear

A U.K. charity says girls have evaded forced marriage by hiding spoons in their underwear. (Photo: REUTERS)

A British charity is advising girls who worry they're being taken abroad to marry against their will to hide a spoon in their underwear at the airport  to trigger security and give them a chance to tell authorities of their fears.

Agence-France Presse reported that Karma Nirvana, which is based in the English city of Derby, had fielded thousands of calls from young people, and that the advice had helped some of their clients.

"When they go through security, it will highlight this object in a private area and, if 16 or over, they will be taken to a safe space where they have that one last opportunity to disclose they're being forced to marry," operations manager Natasha Rattu told the news agency. 

"We've had people ring ... that it's helped them and got them out of a dangerous situation. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do with your family around you, but they won't be aware that you have done it. It's a safe way."

Britain has been at the forefront of the fight against forced marriage: A joint Home Office-Foreign Office unit was set up in 2005 and is dedicated to preventing the practice and supporting survivors. Last year, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that forcing a person to marry against their will would become a crime.

Summer is traditionally the most worrying time for those seeking to prevent forced marriages, according to the FCO: "The rise in forced marriage reports during the school holidays is shocking," said crime prevention minister Jeremy Browne. "This is a serious abuse of human rights."

The government said the unit received  more than 400 reports between last June and August. According to AFP, about 1,500 cases overall were handled in 2012. The most common country linked to the investigations was Pakistan; other countries included Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, Somalia, Turkey, and Iraq.

Jennifer Quinn is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter at the Star. As a journalist with the Associated Press, based in London, she wrote extensively about British politics. Follow her on Twitter @JQStar.

"Girls married 60 times before 18" - Egypt's Child Sex Tourism

 

YouTube video from the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood promotes women's political rights in Egypt. The NCCM says women's inequality is reflected in sham marriages for teenage girls that  are a form of child prostitution.

 

As if we needed more discouraging news out of the turmoil in Egypt, a shocking report says that thousands of teenage girls are being sold by their parents to wealthy Arab male tourists under the pretext of marriage in a barely-disguised form of child prostitution.

 “The sham nuptials may last from a couple of hours to years,” says a story entitled "Underage Girls are Egypt's Summer Rentals" by Cam McGrath from the Inter Press Service News Agency. 

“It’s a form of child prostitution in the guise of marriage,” Azza El-Ashmawy, director of the Child Anti-Trafficking Unit at the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood told the IPS.

“Some girls have been married 60 times by the time they turn 18," she said. " Most ‘marriages’ last for just a couple of days or weeks.”

McGrath explains that temporary marriages allow the male buyers to get around Islamic restrictions on pre-marital sex.

He reports that the trade has increased since Egypt’s 2011 revolution ushered in a period of economic collapse along with crumbling law enforcement.

McGrath describes the scene in  El Hawamdia, an impoverished town 20 kilometres outside of Cairo.

Well-dressed Arab men "troll the town’s pot-holed, garbage-strewn streets in their luxury cars and SUVs" as "fixers" run alongside offering them apartments -- and underage girls -- for rent.  

A NCCM survey of 2,000 families in three towns near Cairo  found that "the hefty sums paid by Arab tourists was the main motive for the high rate" of so-called “summer marriages” in these areas.

Three-quarters of the respondents said that they knew girls involved in the trade and that the number of marriages was increasing.

According to the survey, more than 80 percent of the male “spouses” were from Saudi Arabia, 10 percent from the United Arab Emirates, and four percent from Kuwait.

The IPS story says that since sexual relations with minors is illegal in Egypt, brokers forge birth certificates or substitute the identity card of a girl’s older sister.

 It says a "pleasure” marriage can be arranged for as little as 800 Egyptian pounds (about $120 Canadian dollars). 

Sandy Shinouda with the Counter-Trafficking Unit of the  International Organisation of Migration in Cairo told IPS that  most of the young girls come from large families for whom marriage to a wealthier foreigner offers an escape from poverty.

"The family considers her as a commodity,” she told the IPS. “The girls know their families have exploited them…they can understand that their parents sold them.” 

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Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and invetsigative reporter for the Star and be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.

 

 

 

Cairo's Tahrir Square no place to be a woman: 91 assaults in last four days

The public space which symbolizes Egyptians’ struggle to free themselves from the shackles of despotic rule has been a nasty, dangerous place for women. 

Human Rights Watch’s report today claims at least 91 women have been sexually assaulted – ranging from being groped to rape – in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during four days of anti-government protests. On June 28 there were five attacks, on June 30, there were 46 attacks,  17 on July 1, and 23 on July 2.  

 Tahrir Square is badly lit. The other part of the problem is that police are not patrolling the square during large demonstrations because they are trying to avoid clashes with protesters which potentially could fuel even more violence. As a result, Human Rights Watch said, women are unprotected and the men involved know they will not be arrested.

 Few victims are publicly speaking out but the testimony of one who is bravely doing just that, 30-year-old Yasmine El Baramawy, a musician, is shocking. She told the rights group that last November a gang of men knocked her to the ground, and cut her blouse and bra. She was surrounded by 100 men.   

“At the height of the attack, I looked up and saw 30 individuals on a fence. All of them had smiling faces, and they were recording me with their cellphones. They saw a naked woman, covered in sewage, who was being assaulted and beaten, and I don’t know what was funny about that. This is a question that I’m still thinking about, I can’t stop my mind from thinking about it.” 

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at The Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

Three U.S. Naval Academy football players could be charged with rape

U.S. Naval Academy graduates celebrate in Annapolis, Md. on May 24, 2013 Photo: Larry Downing/Reuters

 

The issue of rape continues to ravage America, a menacing, high-profile scourge that colleges, schools and – most recently, the military – seem at pains to comes to grips with.

As we wrote earlier here this year, a 2011 study revealed that one of every five U.S. women experiences rape, or attempted rape, in their lifetime. Worse, one in five experiences it during their college or university years.

Now a recent Pentagon survey reveals the problem appears rampant in the military: 26,000 service members report they experienced “unwanted sexual contact” in 2012 alone.

Yet just 3,374 of these sexual assaults were actually reported.

Why?

In the military, as in civilian life, victims have little faith that authorities will take their complaints seriously.

That seemed to be the case in April last year with the alleged sexual assault of a U.S. Navy midshipwoman in Annapolis, Md.

The woman actually gave up hope that her story of a three-on-one rape at the hands of colleagues would be dealt with.

Her lawyer Susan Burke told NBC News Tuesday her client had been “ostracized” by her Navy colleagues following her complaint.

Crushed, the victim finally stopped co-operating with prosecutors after a time – and the investigation folded.

But in February, she refiled.

Reports now say U.S. Naval Academy Vice Admiral Michael Miller will soon announce the convening of an Article 32 proceeding, the equivalent of a preliminary hearing.

The similarities between the U.S. Naval Academy fiasco and the infamous Steubenville High School rape earlier this years are striking: in both cases the alleged attackers were football players, in Steubenville they were high school players, in Annapolis they were members of the Naval Academy football team; in both cases the victims had been drinking; both were comatose at the time at the time of the assault; and both only learned of it later from friends and social media.

Finally, of course, it took guts to file a complaint in the face of communities that did not want to hear about it.

Legal experts say the naval case will turn on whether the victim gave consent.

In the Steubenville case – followed by millions around the world – prosecutors argued successfully that the 16-year-old victim was in no position to give consent.

Two Steubenville football players were found guilty.

Might the Naval Academy case end similarly?

Watch this space.

 Bill Schiller has held bureau postings for the Star in Johannesburg, Berlin, London and Beijing. He is a NNA and Amnesty International Award winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from the class of '06. Follow him on Twitter @wschiller

Revenge Porn site dies, but others flourish

It's called "revenge porn" and it's as bad and nasty as it sounds.

You break up with someone and then in a spate of spite, you post  XXX pictures of your ex.

Often with scathing comments. Always with embarassing consequences for the victim, usually the woman.

On The Media, the NPR radio show that has been covering this story, reported that one of the most infamous websites that promoted this kind of online revenge has shut down.

Is Anybody Down was one of the more successful of these sites because it added a powerful tweak: it linked the nude pictures to the target's Facebook or Twitter accounts, thus making it much more likely than someone Googling you would  stumble upon pictures you'd rather not have anyone see.

In a hard-hitting if controversial interview which is worth a listen, the NPR program skewered webist owner Craig Brittain.

Brittain, who boasted he had pictures of over 700 woman on his site, was facing legal action from at least one group of outraged victims in Colorado and investigations  by law enforcement.

Now Brittain has folded his tent.

"Revenge Porn is over," Brittain said in his Twitter feed last month. " I won't be making any more of them. The content is gone. I'm doing the right thing now."

Still, revenge porn flourishes elsewhere on the web. (And no, we are not going to list those sites.)

But also flourishing is revenge against the revenge sites.

NPR reported that "Florida and California are considering bills that would make it a crime to post a nude picture online without the subject's consent."

And a woman in the state of Florida filed charges against her ex-boyfriend and four websites for posting revenge images of her.

A fanous New Yorker cartoon once had two dogs in front of a computer, commenting that on the Internet no one knows you're a dog.

But that has not stopped some humans from behaving like animals.

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Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter for the Star and can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.