“Εγώ και άλλες γυναίκες έχουμε υποφέρει σιωπηλά αλλά δεν μπορούμε να μένουμε πια στη σιωπή…Είμαστε θύματα σεξουαλικής βίας από τους οδηγούς της νυχτερινής βάρδιας των λεωφορείων που πηγαίνουν στις μακίλας…Νομίζουν ότι είμαστε αδύναμες επειδή είμαστε γυναίκες…”

από τον τύπο τους:

Η γραμμή λεωφορείου 4Α στο Σιουδάδ Χουάρεζ του βόρειου Μεξικού έχει την ίδια άσχημη φήμη που έχουν αρκετά άλλα δρομολόγια για σεξουαλική κακοποίηση γυναικών από τους οδηγούς. Πλέον όμως οι μισοί οδηγοί φοβούνται να εμφανιστούν στη δουλειά τους και τα δρομολόγια γίνονται με επιβάτες που είναι στην πραγματικότητα αστυνομικοί με πολιτικά.

Το περασμένο Σάββατο, αρκετά μέσα μαζικής ενημέρωσης της περιοχής, έλαβαν έναα νώνυμο μήνυμα με το οποίο γινόταν ανάληψη της ευθύνης των δύο φόνων, από μία γυναίκα που υπέγραφε, «Ντιάνα κυνηγός οδηγών». Στο ανώνυμο μήνυμα αναφέρεται μεταξύ άλλων «νομίζουν ότι είμαστε αδύναμες επειδή είμαστε γυναίκες ( … ) Είμαι ένα όργανο εκδίκησης». Η αποστολέας προειδοποιεί μάλιστα για νέες δολοφονίες.

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am4c76omeaU[/youtube]

Αφιερωμένο στη Σώτη Τριανταφύλλου

A group of women, some breast-feeding their children, protested on Friday in Barcelona in front of the Primark retail shop, demanding a right to breast-feed their babies where they see fit. The protest began on August 10, after Primark’s staff in Spanish city of Valladolid expelled a mother for breast-feeding her baby. Following these events, the association Pro-Breastfeeding and support groups throughout Spain, presented a complaint on behalf of the rights of babies to be fed at any time and place.

The mums were signing a petition, demanding from Spanish and EU institutions not to discriminate breast-feeding mothers.

“It’s not fair that for breast-feeding our babies in a shop, they draw our attention, they make us feel ashamed, embarrassed, they kick us from a shop… It’s as if we are criminals to feed our sons, it is something that doesn’t have much logic”, Laura Benitez Arroyo, one of the protesting mothers said.

Protests were also held in other Primark’s stores throughout Spain including: Valladolid, Murcia, Valencia, Zaragoza, Alicante, Elche, Gran Canaria, Cornellà de Llobregat, Sevilla, Madrid, Torrevieja and Oviedo .

Αναδημοσιεύουμε την ελληνική μετάφραση του άρθρου από το barikat.gr

Ήμασταν στην άκρη της πλατείας Ταχρίρ την Τετάρτη 3 Ιουλίου, όταν ο στρατός έκανε την ανακοίνωσή του. Η πλατεία ξέσπασε σε πανηγυρισμούς. Ένα μέλος της ομάδας μας κοίταξε το κινητό του. Ούρλιαξε ανάμεσα στη βοή από τα τύμπανα και τις βουβουζέλες: «Ο Μόρσι έπεσε. Διόρισαν στη θέση του τον πρόεδρο του συνταγματικού δικαστηρίου και αναστείλανε τις εκλογές.»

Παρακολουθούσαμε τους πανηγυρισμούς. Κοίταξα γύρω μου τους ανθρώπους που ήξερα, με μερικούς από αυτούς είχα μοιραστεί – πώς να το πω, την Ταχρίρ του τότε; – και τα επόμενα δυόμιση χρόνια θυμού, χαράς, εξάντλησης, θριάμβου, απελπισίας. Τα πρόσωπά τους ήταν ανέκφραστα σαν και το δικό μου. Το μόνο συναίσθημα που είχα ήταν φόβος – όχι για το πολιτικό μέλλον, για αυτό ένιωθα πλέον ότι δεν καταλάβαινα τίποτα και ότι είχα χάσει κάθε ελπίδα – αλλά για την αμέσως επόμενη στιγμή: πως θα μπορούσαμε να ξαναφτάσουμε στην πλατεία;

Πέρασαν δέκα λεπτά, δεν μπορούσαμε να το αναβάλλουμε άλλο. Έπρεπε να παραδώσουμε φαί στις ομάδες επέμβασης που βρίσκονταν γύρω από την πλατεία και οι πανηγυρισμοί θα γίνονταν όλο και πιο μαζικοί και πυρετώδεις όσο θα προχώραγε η νύχτα. Σχηματίσαμε μία γραμμή και βουτήξαμε στο πλήθος, κρατώντας σφιχτά ο ένας τον άλλο και προσπαθώντας να προφυλαχθούμε από τα επιθετικά χέρια γύρω μας. Προσπαθούσα να είμαι εκεί, παρούσα – αν όχι να απολαμβάνω τους πανηγυρισμούς, τουλάχιστον να τους ακούω – αλλά το μόνο που μπορούσα να σκεφτώ ήταν πως θα παρέκαμπτα αυτή την κοσμοπλημμύρα. Σε κάποιο μακρινό μέρος του μυαλού μου αναρωτιόμουνα για το φόβο: είναι μια ιδέα ή μια πραγματική αντίληψη του σώματος; Εάν δεν ήξερα τι έκανα, θα μπορούσα να νιώσω την ανάταση, να χαθώ στο πλήθος όπως είχα κάνει παλιότερα;

Φτάσαμε την πρώτη ομάδα επέμβασης και κατέρρευσα ανάμεσά τους – ένα νησί ασφάλειας μέσα στην πλατεία. Αυτή δεν ήταν κάποια επιδέξια ομάδα ειδικών δυνάμεων με ομοιόμορφες στολές. Ήταν μια ομάδα γυναικών, γυναικών που φορούσαν λευκά μπλουζάκια με κόκκινη γραμματοσειρά που έγραφε: «Αντι-Σεξουαλική Κακοποίηση» και στο πίσω μέρος: «Μία Πλατεία Ασφαλής για Όλους.»

Ήταν η πρώτη μου μέρα ως εθελόντρια στην Επιχείρηση Αντι-Σεξουαλική Κακοποίηση/Επίθεση (OpAntiSH). Η Ταχρίρ ήταν το τελευταίο μέρος που θα ήθελα να βρίσκομαι, με όλα αυτά που είχα ακούσει πρόσφατα. Και όμως – δεν ένιωθα πια πως έχω θέση στις πορείες που γίνονταν σε διάφορα σημεία της πόλης, δεν μπορούσα να μείνω σπίτι και δεν μπορούσα να αγνοήσω το ένα πράγμα που ανάμεσα σε όλη αυτήν την τρέλα έμοιαζε να έχει πραγματικά σημασία. Βγαίνοντας από το ταξί δίπλα στο Νείλο εκείνο το απόγευμα και περπατώντας μόνη μέχρι το σημείο συνάντησης πίσω από την πλατεία, έτρεμα από το φόβο. Καθώς μαζευτήκαμε για να ενημερωθούμε, ένα μέρος μου σάστισε με τα κόκκινα νύχια της κοπέλας που στεκόταν δίπλα μου, με τα χαμόγελα στα πρόσωπα των ανθρώπων, όταν στο δικό μου θα πρέπει να ήταν ζωγραφισμένη η τραγωδία – κάτι σαν την αφέλεια της νεοφερμένης. Δεν είχα ακόμη το χρόνο να συνηθίσω, να εγκλιματιστώ.

Χωριστήκαμε σε μεικτές ομάδες των δέκα. Η αποστολή μας ήταν να ενημερώσουμε τον κόσμο για το τι συμβαίνει και να τους πούμε τι να κάνουν σε περίπτωση που δουν κάτι. Θα κινούμασταν γρήγορα και θα μέναμε κοντά ο ένας στον άλλο – το να αποκρυνθούμε θα ήταν επικίνδυνο.

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Για την κατάσταση στην Ονδούρα δες και εδώ

Από τον τύπο τους:

The Honduras government has effectively given up on rehabilitating criminals and left prisons to be controlled by their inmates, according to a new report.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the country’s prisons were impoverished, overcrowded and corrupt.

It called on the authorities to deal with what it called a deep structural crisis.

The report comes after a fire killed some 360 prisoners in February 2012.

Inmates at the Comayagua prison north of Tegucigalpa were trapped in their cells when the blaze broke out.

‘Totally collapsed’

Government figures show more than 12,000 people in Honduras are currently incarcerated in prisons that were built for just 8,000.

The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the jails are under the de-facto command of inmates – often belonging the country’s violent criminal gangs – who even set rules and enforce physical punishments.

It also said women share prisons with men and are often victims of abuse.

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MkWoOnRJBc[/youtube]

Αναδημοσίευση από jadaliyya

We were on the edge of Tahrir Square on Wednesday 3 July when the army made its announcement. The square burst into jubilation. A member of our team checked his smartphone. He shouted over the din of drumbeats and squealing vuvuzelas: “Morsi’s gone. They’ve appointed the head of the constitutional court in his place and suspended the elections.”

We watched the celebrations. I looked around at the people I knew, with some of whom I had shared—what do I call it, the Tahrir of yore?—and the subsequent two-and-a-half years of anger, euphoria, exhaustion, triumph, dejection. Their faces were as expressionless as mine. The only emotion I could locate inside myself was fear—not of the political future, about which I no longer felt I understood a thing, and had lost my faith and footing in—but of the very next moment: how would we get back into the square?

After ten minutes, we could not put it off any more. We had to deliver food to the intervention teams posted around the square, and the celebrations would just get more massive and feverish as the night wore on. Our team formed a line and dove into the crowds, holding tightly onto one another and trying to protect each other from any onslaught of hands. I tried to be present—if not to enjoy the festivities, then at least to notice them—but all I could think of was cutting across this heaving sea. In a distant part of my mind I wondered about fear: is it an idea or a real understanding in the body? If I did not known what I did, would I be able to feel the exhilaration, to lose myself in the crowd as I had done before?

We reached the first intervention team and I flopped in their midst—an isle of safety in the square. This was not some slick special-forces unit in imposing uniform. It was a group of young women and women wearing white T-shirts with red lettering that said: “Anti-Sexual Harassment” and on the back, “A Square Safe for Everyone.”

It was my first day of volunteering with Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault (OpAntiSH). With everything I had heard about Tahrir lately, it was the last place I wanted to be. And yet—I no longer felt I had a place in the marches taking place all over the city; I could not stay home; and I could not turn my back on the one thing in the midst of all the madness that seemed to cleanly matter, to make sense.

I was trembling as I got out of the taxi by the Nile that afternoon and walked alone to our meeting point behind the square. As we gathered around in a circle to be briefed, a part of me was bewildered at the red nails of the girl standing next to me, at the smiles on people’s faces, when on mine tragedy must have been writ large—a sort of newcomer’s naiveté. I had not yet had time to recalibrate, to normalize.

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_t5jc73a3E[/youtube]

Δες και εδώ

Από τον τύπο τους:

Riot police dispersed a protest in central Kiev early on Friday over last month’s rape of a woman who accused police officers of the crime, local media reported.

The city government had allowed the protest on Kiev’s main square to be held on Thursday. But after some protesters set up tents to spend the night on the square, the authorities ordered them to leave and police arrived shortly afterwards, the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper reported.

Αναδημοσίευση από jadaliyya

Last September, sixteen-year-old Eman Mustafa was walking with a friend in the village of Arab Al Kablatin Assiut, when a man groped her breasts. She turned to face him and spat in his face. He shot her dead with an automatic rifle as a price for her bravery. Mustafa’s death was an eye-opener call to those who claim that sexual violence is an urban issue. Thanks to human rights organizations and activist groups, Eman’s killer was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2013.

Violence against women across historical, cultural, and national divides continues to be a socially accepted practice, if not a norm. In the realms of both policy and social awareness, we have collectively failed to tackle this issue with serious rigor. As a result, we seem to be witnessing an increase in sexual violence and brutality.

In Egypt, sexual harassment is widespread and touches the lives of the majority of women whether on the streets, in public transportation, or at the work place, the super market, or political protests. It is true that sexual harassment still lacks a unified definition, but it is not difficult to identify unwelcome verbal or physical sexual violation. Many Egyptians, women included, are unclear as to what constitutes sexual harassment. Others sadly, do not think it is a problem. One thing is clear though, and that is the actions of the various governments of the last thirty years have been limited to statements of regret and unmet promises.

The word taharrush (harassment) is a relatively new term in the daily lexicon. Until recently, sexual harassment was referred to as mu‘aksa (flirtation). That term alone reveals the multiple layers of denial, misogyny, and violence Egyptians must confront in tackling sexual harassment. In addition to rape and physical assault we must equally tackle name-calling, groping, and the barraging of women with sexual invitations. All of these acts normalize violence and hatred against women and they must become socially unacceptable.

Even though, for example, Eman Mustafa was a veiled villager, one key argument in the victim-blaming that is salient in our everyday narratives is the common and vulgar perception that sexual harassment occurs when women dress “provocatively.”  In fact, the only thing that Egyptians who face sexual harassment have in common is that over ninety-nine percent of them are females.

Over the last decade, Egyptians have been working intensively on spreading both social and legal awareness on sexual violence and harassment. In 2005, the Egyptian Center for Women’s rights launched its “Safe Streets for Everyone” initiative to combat sexual harassment. In 2008, more than sixteen human rights organizations and independent groups formed the “Task Force Against Sexual Violence.” In 2010, that Task Force released its own bill to amend Penal Code provisions on sexual violence. That year too, the volunteer-based initiative Harassmap established a free software method to receive anonymous SMS reporting that it would process into a mapping system. Harassmap’s mission was to render sexual harassment socially unacceptable.

Over the past two years, activists have formed many other independent movements and online groups that raise awareness, empower women to stand up against gender-based violence and speak out by sharing testimonies and ideas to combat sexual harassment, and in some cases, expose the perpetrators. After Eman Mustafa’s death last September, anti-sexual harassment protests were held at Assiut University to condemn the murder of a girl who fought for her bodily rights.

Women who have suffered from sexual harassment are usually reluctant to tell their stories, fearing reprisals and the dreaded label of the agitators. Nevertheless, if there is any noticeable progress in fighting sexual harassment in Egypt, it would be the rise in the number of women who are speaking up about their experiences and filing reports against their offenders. Another important development has been the formation of independent volunteer-based groups who fight sexual violence on the ground across the nation. In 2010, Harassmap received requests to expand their campaign to Alexandria, Daqahliya, and Minya. This year, Harassmap has expanded to sixteen governorates other than Cairo. With the help of more than 700 volunteers nationwide, Harassmap is reaching out to rural communities to end social acceptability of sexual harassment.

In June 2008, Noha al-Ostaz experienced a form of sexual violence on a Cairo street. She was confident that ignoring the behavior of the offender was ineffective. With the help of a friend and a bystander, Al-Ostaz managed to take the offender to a police station and file charges against him. Three months later, and for the first time in Egypt, the offender was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of sexual assault. Al-Ostaz paved the way for other women to stand up for their rights. Her action has encouraged several to pursue harassment charges against assailants.

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αναδημοσίευση από Jadaliyya

The issue of women’s empowerment continues to be of paramount significance in determining the future of the incomplete Arab revolutions. Numerous scholars, activists, and feminists have commented with concern about the precarious position of women after the contagious revolutions, which started in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Many haveexpressed anxiety that the controversial gender issue in the Middle East will dominate the coming years, as even Christian leaders transmit Islamists’ pressure on women to dress “more modestly” to their communities. Others have remarked that misogynist attitudes are observable today across the post-revolutionary Arab states, because the Islamists in power have revealed themselves to be agents of an “Islamic neoliberal” ideology that works hand in hand with constraining measures regarding women. These observers have pointed to various shocking acts that all converge in one direction: the targeting of women’s bodies.

The aged President Hosni Mubarak had long embodied the oppressive and institutionalized patriarchy in Egypt. After Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011, an ageing military junta replaced him, and continued to use violence to subdue protest. It was as if a targeted vengeance were being directed against Egypt’s youth, and as if the generational conflict between the old generals and the young protesters had to be played out through the mutilation of young bodies.

Today, almost a year since the election of longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure President Mohamed Morsi, there is a general feeling that nothing has really changed in terms of citizens’ rights. None of the security officials responsible for the series of killings of protesters since January 2011 have been convicted. As this in turn sparks new demonstrations, the Brotherhood regime continues the use of thuggery and public violence,together with sexual harassment, to terrorize citizens and deter them from protest in Tahrir Square.

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