News

Local officials say unmarried pair killed in public in Aguelhok, in the first reported sharia killing since occupation.Islamists occupying the northern Mali town of Aguelhok have stoned an unmarried couple to death in front of about 200 people, two local government officials said.

Delegation presents women’s equality demands to IOC

Sixty women’s delegates from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia rallied in London today to demand: “London 2012: Justice for Women – an end to gender discrimination at the Olympics.”
 
The protest was coordinated by the European Women’s Lobby, which is linked to a network of more than 1,500 women’s organisations across Europe: http://goo.gl/J9Y62

Nine Ivorian women aged 46 to 91 years were convicted of female genital mutilation and complicity of female circumcision, at Katiola, a town 400 km from Abidjan. In February they had excised thirty girls in a ritual ceremony. At the end of this first trial for excision, they got a one-year sentence and a fine of 50,000 CFA francs (75 Euros). However, these women will not serve their prison sentences because of their age, according to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).

Farida Afridi was shot dead in cold blood for the crime of being a decent, caring human being. As the executive director of the human rights NGO, Sawera, Afridi was working in Fata performing the most thankless of jobs: trying to improve the plight of women in an area where many people have never even considered the concept of women’s rights. For that, she had to pay the ultimate price as she was killed by armed gunmen, most likely members of the Taliban, as she drove from her home in Hayatabad, Peshawar to Jamrud in Khyber Agency. Apart from taking away a valuable activist, the militants, through their brutality, will also ensure that there is a chilling effect as fewer NGOs and women will be willing to risk working in an area that needs their efforts the most.