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This week, Governments and individuals have turned their sights on protecting women and curbing sexual violence. Document Women has gathered five stories from around the world.
- Haiti
TW: sexual violence
Since the assassination of the president in 2021, sexually violent crimes have spiked in Haiti. Last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the number of recorded cases in Haiti increased by 377 per cent in 2020.
Follow the efforts of three lawyers; Abigail Derolian, Marie Kattia Dorestant-Lefruy and Gladys Thermezi, who are fighting Haiti’s legal system to win justice for women who have been raped.
Read more here;
- Indonesia
Last week, Indonesia passed a landmark bill which for the first time outlaws forced marriage and sexual harassment. The new law criminalizes nine forms of sexual violence, including physical and verbal assault, harassment, forced sterilization and exploitation.
The newly passed law also includes prison sentences and specifies that a court must compel convicted abusers to pay compensation to victims, who must also be offered counselling. Sexual violence has been rising in the country with 338,496 cases in 2021 – up from 220,000 in 2020
Read more here;
- Turkey
Protests broke out in several Turkish cities including Istanbul and Ankara after one of the country’s most respected and largest women’s rights groups was asked to stop its operations.
We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) was issued with a letter demanding the group be dissolved on public security grounds. The prosecutors claim the group broke the law and acted with immorality by “disintegrating the family structure by ignoring the concept of the family under the guise of defending women’s rights.”
Read more here;
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2064546/middle-east
- Mexico
This year, at least 26 women and girls have disappeared, and six more have been found dead after being reported missing. The death of 18-year old Debanhi Escobar, a law student who disappeared on April 9 near the northern industrial city of Monterrey has sparked new anguish and outrage over gender violence.
In Mexico, an average of 10 women a day are killed, and tens of thousands more are missing.
Read more here;
- Lebanon
The number of women in Lebanon dying from pregnancy-related complications has almost tripled amid a crushing three-year economic crisis that has seen doctors and midwives leave the country, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Wednesday.
Faysal al-Kak, the coordinator of Lebanon’s National Committee on Safe Motherhood, said the number of maternal deaths had spiked largely due to the coronavirus delta variant in 2021 but said the crisis was also a factor.
Read more here;