Rate of abuse against parents is highest among 19- to 25-year-olds and most perpetrators are male
At least 40% of child-to-parent violence and abuse incidents are unreported to police, according to research.
The study into the “hidden harm” commissioned by the London mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) found that the rate of violence and abuse against parents and carers was highest among those aged 19-25, and 81% of perpetrators were male.
Continue reading...Koci Selamaj did not attend sentencing for murder of 28-year-old primary school teacher in London
Sabina Nessa’s family called her killer a “coward” when he refused to come to court to be sentenced for her murder on Thursday.
Koci Selamaj, 36, drove to London from his home in Eastbourne on the south coast to carry out a premeditated attack on a woman after being spurned by his estranged wife.
Continue reading...Some behavioral themes identified include concerning online content, a history of being bullied and financial instability
A new US Secret Service report details a rising threat from men who identify as “involuntary celibates” or “incels”, due to their inability to form intimate relationships with women.
The report released on Tuesday and prepared by the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) highlights behavioral threat assessment themes identified in years of research examining targeted violence.
Continue reading...Working group led by Helena Kennedy QC recommends law to crack down on daily abuses that ‘absolutely degrade women’s lives’
A misogyny act for Scotland, created exclusively for women to crack down on street harassment, organised online hate and an onslaught of rape and disfigurement threats, has been recommended to the Scottish government by Helena Kennedy.
Set up in February 2021 to consider the creation of a standalone offence of misogynist hate crime, Lady Kennedy’s working group has returned a far more ambitious report that recommends naming explicitly the daily abuses that “absolutely degrade women’s lives”.
Continue reading...‘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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Friends of Doski Azad said the 23-year-old makeup artist had received repeated death threats from male family members
The Kurdish transgender woman Doski Azad shot dead by her brother last month, had been living in hiding from her family after repeated death threats, friends have said.
According to friends, Azad had had to move home regularly after several death threats by male members of her family.
Continue reading...Lawyer says refugees, who were protesting against Turkey leaving Istanbul convention on violence against women, are at risk in Iran
Three Iranian refugees are facing deportation from Turkey after taking part in a demonstration against Ankara’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention on violence against women.
Lily Faraji, Zeinab Sahafi and Ismail Fattahi were arrested after attending a protest in the southern Turkish city of Denizli last March. A fourth Iranian national, Mohammad Pourakbari, was detained with the others, despite not attending the protests, according to Buse Bergamalı, their lawyer.
Continue reading...Charing Cross station case shows old problems were allowed to fester on social media thanks to culture of fear
Case by case, the idea that the police’s problems with women is the result of a few bad apples rather than a misogynistic culture gets harder to maintain.
The revelations about the hate-filled messages among officers sent via WhatsApp and Facebook at Charing Cross station in central London are exceptionally sickening in their nature.
Continue reading...Fahima fears she is being targeted because of the role she had, which included recruiting other women
*Fahima was the most senior policewoman in her province. Since the Taliban took over, women who worked in the police force have been targeted for assassination and beatings. She believes Taliban officials are particularly focused on tracking her down because of both her seniority and her role recruiting other women.
I fled to another city just two days after the country fell to the Taliban, because I knew they were looking for me in my home province. They found my address, and have been to my house and asked my family about me.
Continue reading...One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stopped
Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.
Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women.
Continue reading...Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their lives
Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...Killing of the 23-year-old while out running reignites debate about violence against women
Hundreds of people gathered in London on Saturday for a vigil to remember Ashling Murphy, a primary school teacher murdered while she was on an afternoon run in Ireland last week, and call for an end to violence against women.
Murphy, a talented amateur musician and athlete, was attacked on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore, County Offaly. The area is known as Fiona’s Way, in memory of another local woman who disappeared 25 years ago, while seven months pregnant. Her death has renewed debate about women’s safety, in Ireland and beyond.
Continue reading...Thousands have gathered in towns and cities across Ireland after the 'senseless' killing of the 23-year-old teacher, with echoes of the national reckoning that was sparked in the UK last year by the murder of Sarah Everard. Murphy was killed on Wednesday afternoon while going for a run along the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore in County Offaly
Continue reading...Killing of 23-year-old in County Offaly has provoked outpouring of grief and anger in Ireland and beyond
Thousands have gathered in the town of Tullamore in Ireland as a vigil was held for Ashling Murphy.
Other memorials were also held across Ireland after the “senseless” killing of the 23-year-old teacher, with echoes of the national reckoning that was sparked in the UK last year by the murder of Sarah Everard.
Continue reading...The UN has appealed for urgent help following militia attacks on camps for internally displaced people. But money alone won’t solve the crisis
In a bare and violent patch of land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 75,000 people are living in what one UN field officer described as “hellish conditions”. Food and water are scarce. Even the flimsiest shelters are in short supply and sanitation is nonexistent. Girls have been raped by militiamen while attempting to find food in fields around the site. Ibrahim Cisse of Unicef says people here are effectively being held hostage.
Rhoe – a remote camp of internally displaced people (IDP) approximately 45km northeast of Bunia, the capital of DRC’s Ituri province – is “a tragedy waiting to happen”, according to those who have visited.
Continue reading...Request for problem to be taken more seriously comes as data shows sixfold rise in visits to incel forums
The man who gunned down seven people, killing five, in a rampage in Plymouth is being lionised by an online “incel” community, with some ironically venerating him as a “saint” and celebrating the attack as an aid to their recruitment drive.
Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother, Maxine, 51, after a row before going on to fatally shoot four others and then himself in August last year. Before his death, he expressed misogynistic and homophobic tendencies, as well as angrily lamenting his failure to find a girlfriend.
Continue reading...Celebrating mass in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, Francis says violence against women is insult to God
Pope Francis has used his new year’s message to call for an end to violence against women, saying it was an insult to God.
Celebrating mass in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, on the day the Roman Catholic church marks its annual World Day of Peace, Francis wove his new year’s homily around the themes of motherhood and women, saying it was they who kept the threads of life together.
Continue reading...Statistics on gender-based violence broadened beyond cases involving partners or exes
Official statistics on gender-based violence in Spain will be broadened to include killings of women and children by men regardless of whether there was a prior relationship between victim and killer, in what is being described as a first in Europe.
“What is not named does not exist,” said Spain’s equality minister, Irene Montero. “We have to recognise all of the victims and make visible all forms of violence – all machista [sexist] killings – so that we can put in place policies for prevention, early detection and eradication.”
Continue reading...‘It has to be recognised as a term and as a crime’, says government opposition, after unprecedented number of women murdered by partners
The Greek government has come under growing pressure to introduce femicide as an offence in the country’s penal code amid outrage over the growing and unprecedented number of women being brutally murdered by their partners.
Two women were murdered by their husbands within five days last week, bringing the death toll to 17 since January, according to state-run television. Both men allegedly told police that they had killed their wives out of fear that they would leave them.
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