The United Arab Emirates’ first female film producer Nayla Al Khaja is breaking new ground in the United Arab Emirates as she takes on regulators, censors -- and public opinion -- with ground-breaking films that delve into sensitive subjects such as pedophilia and secret teen dating in the Muslim world.
 
Al Khaja, 31, also wants to become the UAE's own Oprah, and is developing a proposal for a talk show tackling sensitive subjects for Dubai One, the UAE’s main English-language television channel.
 
Al Khaja is founder of Dubai-based D-Seven Motion Pictures, previously known as Dessart Productions, producing commercial material, independent documentaries and films. The company was founded in 2002.
 
Besides her television work, Al Khaja is currently working on a short film about a young Emirati couple on honeymoon and a documentary on Dubai's ruling family.

Al Khaja spoke Tracey Holmes for CNN in this recent interview:


Click here to read full story:
By Tracey Holmes
CNN

Related links:
D-Seven

Susan notes: Masarat Daud is a Dubai-born Indian national dynamo who is changing the world with her energy, enthusiasm and educational initiatives. I've featured her before on AWR here: Masarat Daud: Educating The World in Eight Day (TEDxDubi Talk),  Amazing Young Women Making A Difference RIGHT NOW, and It Only Takes Eight Days To Change The World.

Today, February 4, 2010, is Daud's 27th birthday - what a super birthday gift she's received to be featured in the quardianweekly.co.uk in an article (told in her own voice), about recent experiences organising a TEDx conference in her ancestral village. Below is an intro to the article, click on the link below it for the full piece.

On a cold evening at Fatehpur Shekawati village in Rajasthan last week, I opened the rusting locks of my ancestral mansion. The first scenes that greeted me were the obvious ones: cobwebs, bats flying around and old, broken furniture lying upside down. The doors had been opened for the first time in decades and the small mansion was at least a century old.

My first feelings were quite surreal, I suppose. Here I was face to face with the ghosts of my ancestors. I could see my grandmother cooking, my dad playing around as a boy. It was a flood of memories. But soon, a new door opened for me. I realised that this small mansion could be a perfect classroom for my students. Finally I felt elation, that it would be my roots which would help me carry out my mission of educating the poor.

My father migrated to Dubai three decades ago and went into the construction business there. But he never allowed me to forget my roots even though I was born in Dubai. Dad is a passionate believer in education and that’s why he toiled the nights under street-lamps, studying, because electricity was unaffordable.

In Fatehpur Shekhawati, it is common for people to question the use of education today; 40 years ago, the idea of education would have been remote.

I have faced a lot of opposition because I am a Muslim and, apparently, women are not allowed to take up mass work. I also knew about the opposition my father faced when he enrolled me in The American University in Dubai. But I realise that it is in the backwardness of India that lies the possibilities of development.

Click here to read the full story
By Anthony Dias
Special to the guardian.co.uk

Related links:
Amazing Young Women Making A Difference RIGHT NOW
More About Masarat Daud on AWR
More About India on AWR

Susan notes: rape is rampant around the world – even in the U.S. Military where, according to one survey, 70% of female soldiers say they have been sexually assaulted, and one third say they have been raped. In October 2009, 30 US senators voted against an anti-rape amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill in the U.S.

The amendment, which would require defense contractors to allow their employees access to US courts in cases of rape or sexual assault, regardless of where they are stationed, was proposed after the horrific case of a Jamie Leigh Jones who says she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by seven fellow employees of KBR/Halliburton in Iraq (see more here ).

I came across the video below in an insightful blog post at News Junkie Post.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Click here to read the blog post:
By Ole Ole Olson
News Junkie Post
 
Related links:
The Nation: The Plight of Women Soldiers
Republicans For Rape
More About Rape on AWR

A magistrate court in Coimbatore has asked the city police not to arrest commercial sex workers under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act and send them to jail as they were only ‘‘victims’’ and should not be treated as ‘‘accused.’’

Two women in their 20s from Karnataka were arrested under Section 8 (B) of the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act by the all-women police in central Coimbatore on January 12, allegedly for soliciting clients on streets.

When their bail application came up before the judicial magistrate court-1 on Friday, L C Sathiamoorthy, magistrate, ordered their immediate release, calling them “debt-bonded and hapless” victims.


Related links:
Human Traffickers Jailed For Life In UAE