Tag Archives: domestic violence

North Korean women suffer discrimination, rape, malnutrition: U.N.

Women wearing traditional clothes walk past North Korean soldiers after an opening ceremony for a newly constructed residential complex in Ryomyong street in Pyongyang, North Korea April 13, 2017.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korean women are deprived of education and job opportunities and are often subjected to violence at home and sexual assault in the workplace, a U.N. human rights panel said on Monday.

After a regular review of Pyongyang’s record, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women also voiced concern at rape or mistreatment of women in detention especially those repatriated after fleeing abroad.

North Korean women are “under-represented or disadvantaged” in tertiary education, the judiciary, security and police forces and leadership and managerial positions “in all non-traditional areas of work”, the panel of independent experts said.

“The main issue is first of all the lack of information. We have no access to a large part of laws, elements and information on national machinery,” Nicole Ameline, panel member, told Reuters. “We have asked a lot of questions.”

North Korea told the panel on Nov. 8 that it was working to uphold women’s rights and gender equality but that sanctions imposed by major powers over its nuclear and missile programs were taking a toll on vulnerable mothers and children.

Domestic violence is prevalent and there is “very limited awareness” about the issue and a lack of legal services, psycho-social support and shelters available for victims, the panel said.

It said economic sanctions had a disproportionate impact on women. North Korean women suffer “high levels of malnutrition”, with 28 percent of pregnant or lactating women affected, it said.

“We have called on the government to be very, very attentive to the situation of food and nutrition. Because we consider that it is a basic need and that the government has to invest and to assume its responsibilities in this field,” Ameline said.

“Unfortunately I am not sure that the situation will improve very quickly.”

The report found that penalties for rape in North Korea were not commensurate with the severity of the crime, which also often goes unpunished. Legal changes in 2012 lowered the penalties for some forms of rape, including the rape of children, rape by a work supervisor and repeated rape.

This has led to reducing the punishment for forcing “a woman in a subordinate position” to have sexual intercourse from four years to three years, the report said.

It said women trafficked abroad and then returned to North Korea, are reported to be sent to labor training camps or prisons, accused of “illegal border crossing”, and may be exposed to further violations of their rights, including sexual violence by security officials and forced abortions.

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Alison Williams)

 

Alabama police hunting for inmate after large prison break

Inmate Brady Andrew Kilpatrick shown in this undated booking photo provided July 31, 2017, is the last remaining inmate at large after 11 of 12 prison escapees have been recaptured after a mass jailbreak at the Walker County Jail, near Birmingham, Alabama, according to authorities. Courtesy Walker County

(Reuters) – Law enforcement officials searched on Monday for an escaped prisoner on the loose in northern Alabama following a jailbreak of 12 prisoners, the local sheriff’s office said.

There were scant details about how the 12 inmates managed to escape from Walker County Jail, northwest of Birmingham, but the county sheriff’s office said on Facebook that authorities had recaptured 11 of them, some at a highway truck stop.

They continued to hunt for Brady Kilpatrick, the 24-year-old inmate who was still at large. Kilpatrick had been in jail facing charges of marijuana possession.

Police in the small city of Jasper, where the jail is located, urged downtown residents to stay inside and turn on their outdoor lights. Police from nearby Parrish, Alabama, were also involved in the search.

The dozen escapees, all men aged 18 to 30, were imprisoned on charges including robbery, attempted murder, domestic violence and drug possession.

 

(Reporting by Chris Michaud and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Scott Malone and Frances Kerry)

 

In Brazil a woman is killed every two hours from domestic violence

Brazil's President Rousseff poses with women's rights activist Maria da Penha during the launch of the "Woman: Living without Violence" program in Brasilia

By Jo Griffin

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Brazil must do more to ensure its landmark law on domestic violence combats the crime in a country where statistics show a woman is killed every two hours, said Maria da Penha, whose own fight for justice led to a law named after her 10 years ago.

Da Penha, a biopharmacist in northeast Ceara state who was left paraplegic in 1983 after her husband tried to kill her, has shared her name for the past decade with the law praised by the United Nations as world leading on gender violence.

The Maria da Penha law toughened sentences for offenders and set up specialized courts, police stations and shelters for women in cities of more than 60,000 people.

It also gave judges the powers to grant protective measures, like restraining orders, making domestic violence visible.

In March, Brazil’s National Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) credited the law and linked programs with a 10 percent drop in homicides of women at home over the decade.

But activists say other data suggests gender violence is still rampant. In 2015, the Forum for Public Security estimated a rape occurred every 11 minutes in Brazil while another group, the Map of Violence, said a woman was killed every two hours.

Da Penha, 71, said there was still a long way to go with smaller cities still lacking the new special services for women.

“Unfortunately, in the majority of districts women at risk of domestic violence have nowhere to go to make a complaint,” Da Penha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an email interview.

Since 2009, the Maria da Penha Institute has teamed up with universities to train people working with domestic violence survivors so their work is not “compromised by macho attitudes”.

But changing a wider culture of machismo is not easy.

“It’s clear that we all agree there must be an end to gender violence, but what are we doing to achieve this? How many of us still go along with old sayings such as, ‘no one should interfere in a fight between husband and wife?’,” she said.

EMBLEMATIC FIGURE

In Brazil, Da Penha is revered for her work on women’s rights. Former President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, who passed the law in her name, was among those to congratulate her publicly on its 10th anniversary last month.

But it is her personal story and long fight for justice that has made her an emblematic figure for supporters around Brazil.

In 1983 her then husband shot her while she slept, leaving her paralyzed. When she returned home after four months in hospital, he tried to electrocute her while she took a shower.

Her case against him languished in court for two decades and he eventually served just two years in jail for his crime.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights criticized Brazil for not doing enough to prosecute and convict perpetrators of domestic violence and in 2006 the Maria da Penha Act was born.

That international intervention was necessary then shows the extent of Brazil’s negligence of gender violence, Da Penha said.

“We need to act to change perspectives on this patriarchal and macho culture that violated and still violates millions of women in (Brazil),” said Da Penha, adding education was vital.

Nevertheless, a lot of progress was made under President Dilma Rousseff, who has just been impeached, she said.

She cited a 24-hour “Disque Denuncia” hotline to receive and report calls about domestic violence, and the 2015 law that criminalizes femicide.

But Da Penha said women’s rights activists must get behind implementation of the law to ensure tolerance of violence ends.

“I never imagined that my struggle, which began with a lot of pain and suffering, would end up where it did … To have the law named after me is also a big responsibility, since it does not permit me to stop [my work],” she said.

(Reporting by Jo Griffin, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)