Category Archives: Violence against women and girls

MP who assaulted wife should stand down, says Plaid Cymru leader

Posted on by

Jonathan Edwards’s membership of Welsh party sends out ‘wrong message’, says Adam Price

The leader of Plaid Cymru has called for an MP who received a police caution for assaulting his wife to stand down.

Jonathan Edwards, the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, had been suspended since July 2020 but on Thursday the party said he was being readmitted to its Westminster group.

In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org

Continue reading...

Woman at centre of China #MeToo case vows not to give up after appeal rejected

Posted on by

Zhou Xiaoxuan, who alleges TV host groped her, hopes case proves ‘difficulty of being a woman’ in China

The woman at the centre of a landmark case in China’s #MeToo movement has vowed not to give up after a court rejected her appeal for an apology and damages.

In 2018 Zhou Xiaoxuan accused a high-profile state TV presenter, Zhu Jun, of forcibly kissing and groping her during a 2014 internship. The case inspired many others to share their experiences of sexual assault and caused a social media storm.

Continue reading...

South African police arrest more than 120 after gang-rape of eight women

Posted on by

Dozens of zama-zamas – illegal miners from other countries – now being held in crime crackdown following music video shoot attack

Dozens of men detained after the alleged gang-rape of eight women on a music video shoot in South Africa are expected back in court on Wednesday as police made more arrests of artisanal miners blamed by local people for widespread violence.

The arrests on Tuesday near Krugersdorp, a city north-west of Johannesburg, bring the total number of people detained since the attack to more than 120.

Continue reading...

Bohra imam’s visit puts British girls at risk of mutilation, warn FGM campaigners

Posted on by

Dawoodi Bohra leader Mufaddal Saifuddin, who is in the UK to preach, is an advocate of the abusive practice whose visa should be revoked, say activists

Campaigners have criticised the UK government for granting a visa to a religious leader who has advocated for female genital mutilation (FGM).

Mufaddal Saifuddin who is the syedna, or leader, of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a sect of Shia Islam with 1.2 million followers worldwide, will give sermons in front of tens of thousands of people at Northolt mosque in London between 29 July and 7 August.

Continue reading...

Truss vows to outlaw street harassment as Sunak pledges ban on ‘downblousing’

Posted on by

Tory leadership hopefuls set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, as Labour’s Stella Creasy welcomes Truss U-turn

Liz Truss has vowed to make street harassment a crime months after a similar move was blocked by Boris Johnson, while Rishi Sunak pledged to outlaw “downblousing” – taking a photo down a woman’s top without consent.

Both Tory leadership candidates set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, which has been the focus of a longstanding campaign by opposition MPs and feminist activists, especially after the killings of women including Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena.

Continue reading...

Labour pledges to fast-track rape and domestic violence cases through courts

Posted on by

Boris Johnson’s ‘appalling’ attitude to women to blame for lack of progress on gender-based violence, suggests Keir Starmer

Rape and domestic violence cases will be fast-tracked through the courts under a Labour government so that no victim has to wait more than a year for justice, Keir Starmer has pledged.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Labour leader said Boris Johnson had made no progress tackling gender-based violence during his premiership because of his “appalling” attitude towards women.

Continue reading...

Chinese man executed for murder of former wife during live stream

Posted on by

Tang Lu was found guilty of killing social media star Lhamo by setting fire to her online in September 2020

A Chinese man has been executed after a court found him guilty of setting his former wife on fire while she was livestreaming on social media.

The Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture intermediate people’s court said in a short online statement on Saturday morning that it had carried out the execution of Tang Lu.

Continue reading...

Zara Aleena: hundreds dressed in white gather in east London for silent vigil

Posted on by

The 35-year-old law graduate was killed in the early hours of 26 June as she walked home from a night out

Hundreds of people dressed in white gathered for a silent vigil for Zara Aleena, the 35-year-old law graduate who was killed as she walked home from a night out.

A deep solidarity and loss was palpable among the tearful crowd in Ilford, east London, on Saturday – a community still gripped in shock and fear by Aleena’s death, and the growing insecurity women face in public spaces.

Continue reading...

Watchdogs condemn police response to domestic abuse claims against officers

Posted on by

Joint inquiry hears evidence of officers in England and Wales using their status to deter victims from making reports

Police forces in England and Wales are responding to reports of their own officers committing domestic abuse in a way that is “significantly harming the public interest”, with just 9% of such allegations leading to criminal charges, a joint watchdog investigation has found.

The College of Policing, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and the Independent Office for Police Conduct heard evidence of police perpetrators of domestic abuse using their knowledge, status and powers to intimidate victims and deter them from making reports.

Continue reading...

UN urged to impose travel ban on Taliban leadership over oppression of women

Posted on by

Campaigners say curtailing of women’s rights in Afghanistan means Trump-era waiver must be removed

Human rights groups are urging the UN to end a Trump-era waiver that allows Taliban members most responsible for the oppression of women in Afghanistan to travel abroad.

In a test for the international community’s willingness to isolate the Taliban, critics argue that those Taliban members curtailing women’s right to leave their homes within Afghanistan should at minimum be banned from leaving their country.

Continue reading...

Female Labour MPs call on PM to scrap new rape victim guidance

Posted on by

More than 100 MPs write to Boris Johnson saying guidance will lead survivors to avoid seeking therapy

More than 100 female Labour MPs have written to Boris Johnson calling on him to scrap new guidance on pre-trial therapy for rape victims, which they say will make it less likely they will get the vital therapy they need.

Led by the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, MPs including Yvette Cooper, Angela Rayner and Jess Phillips argue that the new rules “will cause many survivors to avoid seeking therapy, and make it more likely that cases will collapse when the prolonged stress of waiting for trials becomes too much”.

Continue reading...

‘This is another pandemic’: a female survivor of domestic abuse in China speaks out

Posted on by

Chinese cyberspace is filled with videos showing violence against women and activists say only real social change will stop the abuse

Tang Ping, 31, a mother-of-two in the southern Chinese city of Nanning, says in 2014 when her first child was six months old, her husband – an academic – began routinely beating her. She felt hurt but also ashamed, blaming herself for not being a good enough wife. She did not know what to do.

Five years ago, after another round of violence, she finally summoned the courage to report her husband to the police. “I was told my injuries were not serious, therefore they could not intervene,” she says, as she prepares to legally dissolve the marriage this week.

Continue reading...

Chinese police arrest eight after group of women attacked at restaurant

Posted on by

Footage shows man striking and dragging woman outside after she pushes him away

Eight people have been arrested over a vicious attack on a group of women at a restaurant in China, police said on Saturday, in a case that has prompted outrage over predatory sexual behaviour.

Footage of the incident widely circulated online shows a man placing his hand on a woman’s back as she shares a meal with two companions at a barbecue restaurant in northern China’s Hebei province.

Continue reading...

Met officers ‘feared Sarah Everard vigil had become anti-police protest’

Posted on by

Officers claimed they feared being violently attacked, say reports, but campaigners accuse force of ‘trampling all over human rights’

Attenders at Sarah Everard’s vigil were arrested by police officers who feared the event had become an “anti-police protest”, according to reports.

Officers claimed in witness statements first reported by the Evening Standard that they were branded “murderers” by those in attendance.

Continue reading...

Nepali woman’s account of rape prompts wave of protest over laws

Posted on by

Calls grow for repeal of statute of limitations and widening of definition of rape after former model makes allegations on TikTok

A young woman’s account on TikTok of being drugged, raped and then blackmailed by a beauty pageant organiser when she was 16 years old has provoked outrage in Nepal and prompted calls to reform the country’s “grossly inadequate” rape laws.

In one of a series of videos, which together have been viewed millions of times, the former model and child actor broke down in tears as she talked about Nepal’s statute of limitations that dictates survivors must report cases of rape within one year of the offence being committed.

Continue reading...

‘Jurisdictional maze’ hinders investigation of sexual violence against Native women, report says

Posted on by

Amnesty International calls for restoring full tribal control over crimes on Native land to improve enforcement

Amnesty International has called on the US government to fully restore tribal jurisdiction over crimes on Native lands in the face of staggeringly high rates of sexual violence against Native women, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Nearly one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women have been raped – more than twice the average for white women and probably an undercount given gaps in data collection, according to the report.

Continue reading...

Judgment day for ‘narcissistic’ Greek pilot who killed British wife Caroline Crouch

Posted on by

Babis Anagnostopoulos spent 10 chilling hours in an Athens courts calmly describing the murder of his wife

Last week, Greek helicopter pilot Babis Anagnostopoulos stood in the dock of an Athens court and related the circumstances that led him to suffocate his British wife. Over the course of 10 hours he barely paused. Coolly and calmly, from 10am to 8pm, he addressed the tribunal.

He recalled the dream life he had shared with the woman whom he would go on to asphyxiate; his decision to choke her beloved puppy, Roxy, hanging the pet dog from the banister of the couple’s maisonette; his love for his baby daughter, whom he would place next to her dead mother’s body; and his determination in a moment “of chaos” to cover up the killing as a robbery gone terribly wrong.

Continue reading...

Nigerian gospel singer’s death puts divorce beliefs in spotlight

Posted on by

Osinachi Nwachukwu’s family and friends allege that she was a victim of domestic abuse

On most Sunday mornings, the searing voice of Osinachi Nwachukwu, one of Nigeria’s best-known gospel singers, filled the vast 100,000-seat auditorium of her church in Abuja.

Footage from one of the last times she led the choir at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre showed her singing the 2017 gospel hit Ekwueme, her eyes pressed closed and hand outstretched in prayer.

Continue reading...

Recorded sex crimes reach record high in England and Wales

Posted on by

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).

Continue reading...

Evidence some Ukrainian women raped before being killed, say doctors

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...