Articles in Category: Women In the News

Loss Of Haitian Heroines A Blow To The Women's Movement

merlet.jpgOne returned to her Haitian roots, to give voice to women, honor their stories and shape their futures.

Another urged women to pack a courtroom in Haiti, where she succeeded in getting a guilty verdict against a man who battered his wife.

A third joined the others and helped change the law to make rape, long a political weapon in Haiti, a punishable crime.

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, founders of three of the country's most important advocacy organizations working on behalf of women and girls, are confirmed dead -- victims of last week's 7.0 earthquake.

And their deaths have left members of the women's movement, Haitian and otherwise, reeling.

"Words are missing for me. I lost a large chunk of my personal, political and social life," Carolle Charles wrote in an e-mail to colleagues. The Haitian-born sociology professor at Baruch College in New York is chair of Dwa Fanm (meaning "Women's Rights" in Creole), a Brooklyn-based advocacy group. These women "were my friends, my colleagues and my associates. I cannot envision going to Haiti without seeing them."

By Jessica Ravitz
CNN


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Michaëlle Jean (Governor General, Canada)

Human Traffickers Jailed For Life In UAE

human_traffickers_jailed_for_life_in_uaeThe Criminal Court in Abu Dhabi yesterday sentenced seven men to life in prison the harshest penalty possible for their roles in operating the capital’s largest known human-trafficking ring.

It marked the first time anyone had been convicted of the crime under the “organised criminal gang” clause of Federal Law 51, according to Dr Saeed al Ghufli, co-ordinator of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking.

Six other people, accused of assisting with the trafficking and exploitation of the victims, were each sentenced to 10 years. All will be deported after completing their sentences.

Rights groups hailed the sentences as a victory for the 18 victims in the case.

“I am, of course, pleased with the verdict and sentence,” Dr al Ghufli said. “They deserve this harsh punishment, which shows the commitment of the UAE to face this crime and to take a strong position.”

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By Daniel Siega
Los Angeles Times
Photo Credit: Amr Nabil / Associated Press


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Holocaust Survivor Advocates For Palestinian Rights

Holocaust Survivor Advocates For Palestinian RightsHedy Epstein is what some might see as a contradiction in terms: a survivor of the Holocaust and also a staunch advocate for the Palestinian people.

Born in 1924 in Freiburg, Germany, Epstein was 14 when she escaped from Nazi persecution via the Kinderstransport to England. Since her 1948 arrival in the U.S., Epstein has been an advocate for peace and human rights.

In 2001 she founded the St. Louis chapter of the Women in Black anti-war group that originated in Israel, and has actively advocated for Palestinian rights since visiting the West Bank in 2003.

As the last decade came to a close, Epstein continued her advocacy by traveling with the women’s peace advocacy group CodePink to the Gaza Freedom March.

The December 31st march (organised with the support of Jewish Voice For Peace), was a planned nonviolent demonstration to protest Israel’s blockade of Gaza, with 1,000 advocates from abroad joining Palestinians in a march to the Gaza-Israel border checkpoint.

hedy_epstein.jpgAlthough Egyptian authorities refused to let the full contingent of protesters into Gaza, the 100 activists that were permitted to enter carried on the anti-blockade message. Prior to the planned Gaza march, Epstein spoke with Babylon and Beyond about her past experiences in Israel, dealing with the controversy of being a Holocaust survivor who criticizes Israel, and the Gaza Freedom March...


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Peace Women In Palestine & Israel Strive For A Better World
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Daniel Quinn
USA

AMAZING Fireworks Open Dubai's Burj Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa (formerly known as The Burj Dubai), the world's tallest building, officially opened today, January 4, 2010.

For the past 12 months, I've lived in its shadow, about a kilometer away from where it towers. Each time I left my not-so-temporary home-away-from-home in Jumeirah 2, one of Dubai's more established areas, I cast my eyes on "The Burj," in all its dubious splendour.

I'm not a fan of big buildings. Or of bigness in general.  But when confronted with something so ambitious, so extraordinary, so completely and totally over the top, one can't help but pause to reflect on the vast potential of the human spirit, and on how we choose to manifest that potential.

And so I have the Burj Khalifa, until today known as the Burj Dubai, to thank for an entire year of daily meditations, despite my ambivalence with respect to the structure itself.

Regardless of my mixed feelings about the Burj Khalifa, and on what it represents, I must confess that I wish I could have been in Dubai today live and in this Burj's shadow, to see one of the marvels of modern architecture and technology take its place on the world stage.

Oh yeah. And besides that? I'm a huge fan of fireworks. HUGE fan! And these ones beat any I will probably ever see in my entire lifetime. Full stop. No contest. Hands down.

Mabrook Dubai :) You did it again, against all odds. Amazing city. Amazing Emirate. Amazing attitude.

Good for you Dubai. You rock. BIG time.


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An Open Letter to Johann Hari of the Independent

Joumana Haddad

haddad_pic.jpgJoumana Haddad, the Lebanese poet, author and critic, recently had a tattoo of a tulip imprinted on the lowest section of her back. She pulls down her waistband to indicate the area in question.

''My kids and my partner, they are not shocked that I have a tattoo, but by the fact that the guy tattooed my arse.'' She roars with laughter.

Controversy is not something Haddad is afraid of. She is a figure of some repute in Lebanon, through her own writing as well as her roles as the cultural editor of An-Nahar, the main newspaper in Beirut, and the head of IPAF, the Arabic equivalent of the Booker prize.

And now she has launched a magazine called The Body. Its subject matter - serious articles on masturbation, trans-sexuality and battered women, as well as riffs on ''my first time'' - has caused not just eyebrows but hackles to rise.

Haddad's website has been hacked into on numerous occasions and she receives regular hate mail. Hezbollah tried to close her stand at the Beirut Book Fair, and the head of the Lebanese Council of Women has called for the magazine, which is sold in sealed plastic in Lebanon and by mail order in other parts of the Arab world, to be banned...

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By Sabine Durrant
The Age

Thanks to:
Bebhinn Kelly
www.hellwafashion.com  
Dubai, UAE

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