For the Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege, who has treated more than 80,000 survivors of sexual violence by armed groups, the west displays double standards over the ‘stain on our humanity’. Walking around a camp for displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo this year, the Nobel peace laureate Dr Denis Mukwege...
The social norm is constructed: not naturally occurring but created by the society in which it is found.
Hence there are no actions which in themselves are inherently #abnormal or universally condemned by all societies at all times. Deviance is thus situational and contextual.
Margot Déage: "A girl who does not belong to a boy or a man can fall into the category of whore at any time, whatever her clothes or sexual practices."
Margot Déage: "Being in a position to say who’s a whore and who’s a good girl is a power in itself within the girls’ group, a power that is strongly mobilised by certain girls. The ones who can fall, in general, are the hardest on the matter."
#India is notorious for its unfair treatment of survivors of #sexualAssault in a country where at least 31,516 #rape cases were reported in 2022, a 20 per cent increase from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
The real figure is believed to be far higher due to the stigma surrounding #sexualViolence and victims' lack of faith in the police.
It's disgusting that India's shameful attitude towards rape survivors has spilled over into schools.
International Labour Organization report says profits have risen to £184bn a year, with 27m people globally trapped in modern slavery. Sex traffickers are making an average of £21,000 a year from each of their victims as profits from forced labour around the world soar, according to new estimates from the International Labour...
„Two of the 3 victims specifically singled out by the NYT in a marquee exposé published in December, which alleged that Hamas had deliberately weaponized sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attacks, were not in fact victims of sexual assault, according to the spokesperson for the Kibbutz Be’eri, which the Times identified as the location of the attack.“
In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence by Kristin Bumiller
In an Abusive State puts forth a powerful argument: that the feminist campaign to stop sexual violence has entered into a problematic alliance with the neoliberal state.
#Palestine / UN experts [*] appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls
[…] Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received.
[…] Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,”
[*] The experts: Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls.
#Paelstine / UN expert[*] appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls
[…] Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received.
[…] Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,”
[*] The experts: Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls.
#Israel has said it has informed the families of 31 people held in the territory since 7 October that their relatives are dead. The news came as the Qatari prime minister said #Hamas had given a “generally positive” response to proposals for a deal trading a break in the fighting and release of #Palestinian prisoners for the return of more #hostages.
The panel of experts said there was evidence of a least two cases of #rape, alongside other cases of #SexualHumiliation and threats of rape. #ReeAlsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said the true extent of #SexualViolence could be significantly higher.
#IDF / New testimonies detail torture and abuse of Gazan detainees in Israeli jails, detention centres
[…] The most concerning testimonies that Euro-Med Monitor received concern female detainees who were directly sexually harassed. The female detainees, who preferred to remain unidentified due to safety concerns, said that Israeli soldiers had harassed them by touching their genitals as well as making them remove their headscarves. Additionally, the rights group confirmed that the soldiers forced the female detainees and their families into providing information about others by threatening to indecently assault and even rape them.
#IDF /the "topics document" [מסמך הצירים] was drafted in 1988 to regulate the release of sensitive documents from state archives [*]
The criteria according to which the governmental archives (the IDF Archive and the State Archive) decide whether to expose or conceal historical documentation - are not sufficiently transparent to the public. These criteria are also not fixed and have changed over the years.
"The Topics Document" [מסמך הצירים], alongside additional related historical documentation, was itself concealed and closed to review for many years. Only after three years of insistence with the State Archive was it finally transferred to the #Akevot ["footprints"] Institute.
So what are the sensitive issues, pertaining to IDF's image, Israel might like to conceal from scrutiny by researches?
One of those "sensitive topics" defined in the document is material that portrays the IDF as an occupying army devoid of moral foundations, which could harm its image as a moral army. Under this topic, eight concrete issues were listed, including:
Violent conduct against the Arab population and acts of cruelty (killing, murder not necessitated by combat, rape, looting, pillage)
Desecration of holy sites (desecration of churches, mosques and cemeteries)
Criminal acts (theft, looting of property, forgeries and destruction of evidence)
Atrocities committed against Jewish women (rape)
Atrocities committed by IDF divisions [in the War of Independence]: (Hula, Khisas, Eilaboun, Duwayma, etc.).
Another topic is aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself, Israel would like to avoid making public due to national security concerns:
Expulsion of Palestinians: Policy of retaliation against infiltrators; orders to harm infiltrators even in case of doubt
Establishing policy against return of Palestinians to their lands
Evacuation of Palestinian settlements and residents (Majdal, today "Ashkelon")
Violent conduct against prisoners contrary to the Geneva Convention (killing); not taking notice of white flags
Bombing of civilian facilities (bombing of hospitals to refugee camps Gaza, El Burj)
[*] Declassification of government papers according to the thirty years limit, by law, led to the emergence of the "New Historians" in Israel [Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris ...], who are known, collectively, to have challenged Israel's Zionist narrative of the Israel-Palestinian conflict
#IDF /on the "topics document" [מסמך הצירים] was drafted in 1988 to regulate the release of sensitive documents from state archives [*]
The criteria according to which the governmental archives (the IDF Archive and the State Archive) decide whether to expose or conceal historical documentation - are not sufficiently transparent to the public. These criteria are also not fixed and have changed over the years.
"The Topics Document" [מסמך הצירים], alongside additional related historical documentation, was itself concealed and closed to review for many years. Only after three years of insistence with the State Archive was it finally transferred to the #Akevot ["footprints"] Institute.
So what are the sensitive issues, pertaining to IDF's image, Israel might like to conceal from scrutiny by researches?
One of those "sensitive topics" defined in the document is material that portrays the IDF as an occupying army devoid of moral foundations, which could harm its image as a moral army. Under this topic, eight concrete issues were listed, including:
Violent conduct against the Arab population and acts of cruelty (killing, murder not necessitated by combat, rape, looting, pillage)
Desecration of holy sites (desecration of churches, mosques and cemeteries)
Criminal acts (theft, looting of property, forgeries and destruction of evidence)
Atrocities committed against Jewish women (rape)
Atrocities committed by IDF divisions [in the War of Independence]: (Hula, Khisas, Eilaboun, Duwayma, etc.).
Another topic is aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself, Israel would like to avoid making public due to national security concerns:
Expulsion of Palestinians: Policy of retaliation against infiltrators; orders to harm infiltrators even in case of doubt
Establishing policy against return of Palestinians to their lands
Evacuation of Palestinian settlements and residents (Majdal, today "Ashkelon")
Violent conduct against prisoners contrary to the Geneva Convention (killing); not taking notice of white flags
Bombing of civilian facilities (bombing of hospitals to refugee camps Gaza, El Burj)
[*] Declassification of government papers according to the thirty years limit, by law, led to the emergence of the "New Historians" in Israel [Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Benny Morris ...], who are known, collectively, to have challenged Israel's Zionist narrative of the Israel-Palestinian conflict
#idf [?] / "I thought she was a terrorist" ... I acted as if "in a military drill"
[2011] Erez Efratti, a Chief of Staff's security guard, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for attempting to commit sodomy on a young woman at the end of his bachelor party, claimed that his state that evening caused him to act "as if in a military drill."
[...] Erez Efrati, the former security guard of the Chief of Staff, who was convicted of attempted sodomy, assault and battery, and causing injury, and sentenced to 8 years in prison, requested a reduction in his sentence because according to him, he thought the complainant was a terrorist and therefore acted according to his training as a security guard.
New criminal law Bill omits Section 377: How this impacts men and trans persons
Despite a Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation to retain Section 377, the reintroduced Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill omits it, making the rape of men, transgender individuals, and animals non-offences.
"It appears that the New York Times manipulated a working-class Mizrahi family in the service of Israeli hasbara in order to score a journalistic achievement, which in reality is nothing more than a repetition of fake news and government propaganda."
"New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack. The paper must explain why it broke its own rules by hiring a clearly biased writer who endorsed racist and violent rhetoric toward Palestinians."
#CAIRO — After a long journey from #Gaza, more than 100 American citizens and their families have entered #Egypt through the #RafahCrossing. Jonathan Webster, the #USEmbassy in Cairo's consul general, said some of those families are telling him they ran out of food and water during their journeys. #Israel
On Wednesday, a UN commission of inquiry investigating #WarCrimes on both sides of the #Israel-#Hamas conflict said it would focus on gathering evidence of #SexualViolence in the October 7 attacks.
The ‘man who repairs women’ on rape as a weapon and how the world forgot the Democratic Republic of Congo (www.theguardian.com)
For the Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege, who has treated more than 80,000 survivors of sexual violence by armed groups, the west displays double standards over the ‘stain on our humanity’. Walking around a camp for displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo this year, the Nobel peace laureate Dr Denis Mukwege...
Sexual exploitation drives 37% rise in profits from forced labour, UN International Labour Organization says (www.theguardian.com)
International Labour Organization report says profits have risen to £184bn a year, with 27m people globally trapped in modern slavery. Sex traffickers are making an average of £21,000 a year from each of their victims as profits from forced labour around the world soar, according to new estimates from the International Labour...