Médecins Sans Frontières condemned for ‘profiting from exploitative images’

Medical charity criticised for using images that ‘endanger and exploit children’ amid row over photos from DRC identifying child rape survivor

Doctors, photographers, human rights activists and academics have written to Médecins Sans Frontières to raise concerns that the medical charity is exploiting the trauma of vulnerable patients to promote its work.

In an open letter to the international president and MSF board, almost 50 signatories, who include current and former staff, allege that the aid organisation has commissioned, published and allowed the sale of photographs that endanger and exploit vulnerable black people, including children.

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New affirmative consent campaign tackles issue head-on, experts say

‘Make No Doubt’ videos aim to provide young people with tools to give and ask for consent, launched one week before NSW law change

Party pashes, drunken encounters and booty-call texts – these are some of the scenarios featured in a campaign being rolled out on social media before new affirmative sexual consent laws coming into effect in New South Wales next week.

It is hoped the short, simple videos – depicting scenes that young people could find themselves in – will equip the target group of 16- to 24-year-olds with the tools to give and ask for consent, and respect when someone says “no”.

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Médecins Sans Frontières pulls images of teenage rape survivor after outcry

NGO takes down photos of girl, 16, from DRC from website after critics call them unethical and racist

Médecins Sans Frontières has removed photographs of a teenage rape survivor from its website after criticism that the images were unethical and racist.

MSF took down two photos of a 16-year-old girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was gang-raped by three armed men afterphotographers, activists and human rights lawyers condemned the images on Twitter.

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Former Victorian orphanage carer, 81, jailed for sexually abusing five boys

William Parker Skelland abused children at Burwood boys’ home in 1973 and 1974

A former carer at a Victorian boys’ orphanage in the 1970s will spend at least four years in prison for sexually abusing five of the young children.

William Parker Skelland, 81, was living in the UK in 2019 when he was arrested for his crimes and extradited back to Australia to answer for them.

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Group invades Cannes red carpet to highlight violence towards women

Protest came before premiere of Holy Spider, based on story of man who killed at least 16 women in Iran

Protests about women’s safety have taken place at the Cannes film festival for the second time in a matter of days, after a group invaded the red carpet at a premiere of a film about the killing of sex workers.

About 12 women went on to the red carpet before the screening of Holy Spider, carrying a banner with the first names of 129 women killed in France since the last time the festival was held.

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Recorded sex crimes reach record high in England and Wales

Victims’ commissioner calls goal of returning prosecution levels to pre-2017 levels ‘a pipe dream’

Sex crimes logged by police in England and Wales have reached a record high amid warnings from the victims’ commissioner that the government’s aim to boost prosecutions to levels last seen five years ago is “a pipe dream”.

Police-recorded sexual offences increased to their highest level over a 12-month period, with 183,587 in the year to December 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

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Gen William Cooley sentenced for sexual misconduct in first-ever US Air Force trial

Military judge rules Cooley must forfeit $54,550 in pay and face a public reprimand for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law in 2018

A two-star general in the US air force who was convicted over the weekend of abusive sexual contact for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law following a family cookout in 2018 must forfeit $54,550 in pay and face a public reprimand, a military judge ruled Tuesday.

Gen William Cooley received that sentence, military officials confirmed in a statement, after becoming the first-ever general to face a military trial in the American air force’s 75-year history.

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Evidence some Ukrainian women raped before being killed, say doctors

Forensic specialists carrying out autopsies north of Kyiv say they ‘still have hundreds of bodies to examine’

Forensic doctors carrying out postmortem examinations on bodies in mass graves north of Kyiv say they have found evidence some women were raped before being killed by Russian forces.

“We already have a few cases which suggest that these women had been raped before being shot to death,” said Vladyslav Pirovskyi, a Ukrainian forensic doctor who with a team of coroners has carried out dozens of autopsies on residents from Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka who died during Russia’s month-long occupation of the area.

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NSW principal’s Harvard scholarship paused due to school investigation

Education department probes complaints about Katoomba high school’s response to claims of harassment among students

The principal of a Blue Mountains high school has had a prestigious Harvard scholarship put on hold while her school is investigated by the New South Wales Department of Education.

The internal departmental investigation comes on top of two court cases involving staff or students at the school.

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Rapist jailed for 17 years after attacking again while on bail

Charles Goodwin, 21, was under investigation when he raped and assaulted two women

A “cold, unempathetic, manipulative” student who raped and sexually attacked two women while he was on bail and being investigated for an earlier violent rape has been jailed for 17 years.

Charles Goodwin, 21, attacked his victims after getting them drunk, Liverpool crown court heard.

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Argentinian bishop sentenced to prison for sexual abuse despite pope’s defense

Gustavo Zanchetta convicted by court in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop

A court in Argentina has sentenced a Roman Catholic bishop to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.

Gustavo Zanchetta, 57, was convicted on Friday of “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse”, with his offense aggravated by his role as a religious minster.

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‘My childhood was stolen. Why is my adulthood being taken, too?’ The rape survivors waiting 1,000 days for prosecution

Court closures, defunded legal aid and barrister shortages are adding to an already excruciating ordeal, while invasive investigations are leading many to drop proceedings altogether

For Nina, the prospect of walking into a police station and reporting her stepfather for child sexual abuse was, she says, her “worst nightmare ... It was something I’d dreaded my whole life,” she says. She had been raped by her stepfather for years when she was a child – and he had promised all sorts of consequences if she ever told anyone. Her mother, he told her, would kill herself. He implied that he might, too – but one thing he always assured her was that he would never go to jail.

When she was in her late teens, Nina finally told her mum, who was devastated, but believed her. It took years, however, before she felt ready to press charges. “One of the things that stopped me from telling anyone that it was happening at the time was the terror of standing in a courtroom putting all that shame on show – and that felt even worse the older I got.

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Sarah Everard’s family pay tribute on first anniversary of her murder

‘We miss her all the time,’ say relatives of woman killed by serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens

The family of Sarah Everard have paid tribute to her on the first anniversary of her murder by a police officer, saying she was “wonderful and we miss her all the time” and that they “live with the sadness of our loss”.

Everard, 33 was abducted, raped and killed by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March last year.

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Tycoon’s son sentenced to death in Pakistan in high-profile rape and murder case

Zahir Jaffer tortured and beheaded Noor Mukadam, in July last year, in case that sparked outrage over violence against women

A court in Islamabad has sentenced to death the tycoon’s son who raped and murdered Noor Mukadam, a case that sparked outrage in Pakistan.

Mukadam, 27, the daughter of a former Pakistani diplomat, was held captive, tortured and beheaded in July last year by Zahir Jaffer, a member of a well-known industrialist family.

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UK government accused of ignoring victims in efforts to tackle ‘sex for aid’

Foreign office’s ‘top-down’ approach failing people it is seeking to protect, says watchdog, with abuse cases still underreported

The British government has not listened to victims in its efforts to tackle abuse in the humanitarian sector after the “sex for aid” scandals, a UK watchdog has said.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai) said the government was falling short because of a “top-down” approach and needed to listen and learn from recipients of aid who remained reluctant to report abuse allegations.

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Greta stands with Sami and Navalny on trial again: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico

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France condemns Paris police officer for allegedly insulting sexual assault victim

Woman’s answerphone recorded officer for three minutes questioning her case

The French government has condemned the actions of a Paris police officer who was suspended after he was allegedly recorded saying a Parisian teacher who made a sexual assault complaint was a “whore”.

Lawyers and rights groups reacted with outrage after a recording was released on the investigative website Mediapart of the police officer repeatedly insulting the woman and questioning her case.

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Tigrayan soldiers accused of raping and killing civilians in Ethiopia’s civil war

New Amnesty report details ‘mounting evidence’ of repeated war crimes including gang-rape, summary killings and looting

Tigrayan soldiers killed civilians and gang-raped women and girls in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region, a human rights organisation has claimed, in the latest accusation of atrocities made against fighters engaged in the country’s civil war.

Troops with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) shot dead at least 24 people in the town of Kobo in one day last September, according to Amnesty International.

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Police reportedly link woman to crime using DNA taken from her rape kit

San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking out

San Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.

The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures.

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