[News] World's worst places to be a woman.

r3nu4l

Warning. Distressing content.

I saw this report in the Guardian today.

I won't quote the text because some of it is really distressing.

Basically Afghanistan, The Congo, Pakistan and India are amongst the worst places in the world to be a woman. Rape, traffiking, acid attacks, forced marriage and murder seem to be the most chilling aspects up-front but behind this is a lack of education and access to healthcare.

Poverty and no way out of that poverty are contributing to these problems.
It makes you realise how brave a woman has to be to make any simple stand for even the most basic of rights in these countries.

I honestly don't know what I'm trying to say in this post other than to highlight the report.

Da Shins Kelly

I would agree with the ones you mentioned, particularly The Congo. I read 50 rapes happen a day there.

Also, watched a very distressing documentary last night about the end of Sri Lankan civil war two years ago. The systematic rape of women there in the final months of the war was truly horrific, and apparently still continues.

greenprincess

Its awful the way some women are still treated. But with the state of their governments and controlling religions any change is still very difficult.

gargleblaster

It's heartbreaking to think of how it must feel for little girls growing up in a culture that devalues women to the extent that it does in those places.

I also can't help but wonder how many of the women, as they grow up, end up buying into it. I'm not blaming women for the situations there, very far from it. I just suspect that it must happen and I find it very hard to understand.

Ickle Magoo

I work with groups of women from some of those countries. Some of their stories are just heartbreaking, not just what they themselves have gone through - some of which a lifetime of counselling wouldn't get them over - but also all those they have left behind that are still going through it.

Every time I hear/see someone bemoaning all immigrants I want to drag them to one of the groups and make them listen to some of their stories. :mad:

r3nu4l

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Every time I hear/see someone bemoaning all immigrants I want to drag them to one of the groups and make them listen to some of their stories. :mad:

A (female) friend of mine spends months at a time in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen etc. working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as a consultant on women's issues.

Hearing the horror stories she has really makes you think. Her comment to me has always been 'Just when I think I've seen and heard the worst humanity has to offer, I visit some new village somewhere and see something even worse'

This is an issue that goes beyond NGOs though. It's up to Governments from the West to put pressure on these countries to make social and political change. Offering investment and aid is no use if the actual fabric of that society remains unchanged.

At a congress I was at recently I was talking to a paediatric cardiac surgeon who works in the Middle East. He told me that in many cases in the Middle East and Asia, parents (father AND mother) refuse cardiac operation on their children that will leave a scar, particularly daughters, simply because a scar will mean that she cannot be married off because she is blemished. It's not simply the men at fault on that issue, it's the acceptance of this stance by all of society that is the problem.

I don't know what can be done to change such ingrained beliefs.

squeakyduck

r3nu4l my brothers fiancé does that kind of work too. The stories she comes back with can be terrible.....or just so different to what you would expect here. It's terrible to think that women are in danger or victimized in other countries..while most Irish women have semi comfortable/independent lives.....but that's life unfortunately.

Ickle Magoo

r3nu4l wrote: »

It's not simply the men at fault on that issue, it's the acceptance of this stance by all of society that is the problem.

Absolutely this, in fact there are some men in other groups at my work who risked it all to get their wives and daughters out of such a country.

I'm not sure what can be done to change such ingrained beliefs...what happened to cause the shift in social thinking here? Why did it suddenly become unacceptable to send pregnant girls to laundries?

boomchicawawa

I read a report of a woman raped in Libya, her husband belonged to a rebel group. Now he has shunned her because of this 'shame'...how low can you get. I was also looking at a documentry about the 'birth' of Pakistan. In some areas Hindu women were raped and this meant they we now considered Muslims, not sure why, possibly because their own people also shunned them.....Why does the woman become the outcast and not the rapist !!! unreal

I have an ex boyfriend from Pakistan... he was outspoken on the injustices facing women in Pakistan, but still a slave to cultural thinking (women are silly, women are funny little people who you have to indulge but not take seriously - it was this little attitudes of his that lead to our break-up, for despite him saying this wasn't how he thought or felt, I could see it had been ingrained). It was good to hear from him, as he thought of it as progress (though implied that it was also a cause for alarm as possibly dangerous) that his younger siblings were causing no end of trouble for his parents. His 20 year old brother had had three girlfriends - while he and his family saw no issue with this, it left them open to attacks from the families of the three girls involved, not to mention possible danger for the three girls too (shame and harlots, basically). His eighteen year old sister wanted to study abroad and colour her hair, wore jeans and went to college - similarly while his family had no issue with this (apart from the studying abroad, they still wouldn't let her out of the country) it was the danger she was bringing on herself that concerned the family into forcing her back into a hijab and keeping her under thumb. It's nice to know that cultural attitudes are progressing amongst the educated and wealthy of Pakistan, but it's a drop in the ocean in a country as large and populated as it is.

Emme

There's an interesting article in this month's National Geographic about child brides in Yemen.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text

There are situations where 10 and 12 year old girls are married off to men in their 20s and older. They have terrible lives and some of them die soon after getting married. A policewoman who was trying to help some of the girls was killed by the Taliban.

The above post made me also remember something that my ex had told me about his teenage years in Pakistan. He had a girlfriend - they never even held hands, they used to walk together and talk, but physical contact was a no-no on both parts. He genuinely loved her, they "walked together" for four years, from 14 to 18, then she was told she was to marry this 40 year old business man. She expressed that she wished to marry my ex, and was told that he was nothing but a schoolboy, he could not provide for her and for the family, and that she would be miserable marrying him. She asked him to run away with her, but he knew the dangers involved and told her she had to marry the man her parents had chosen, said goodbye, and he never got over it. He happens to know she has two kids and is still married to the guy, but he always felt they should have been his kids. This is particularly frustrating because these are educated, wealthy and liberal people in the most developed parts of Pakistan - and the youngsters can see the wrong in the lives they're being pushed into, but feel that they cannot rebel because of the horrendous retribution dealt out to women and men who "disobey" in a culture they are trying so hard to change.

Dudess

Jesus, the bit about the Congo... :mad: ;_;

Sibylla

I'm shocked to hear there are fifty rapes a day in the Congo. In 2011 how can a functioning society treat women in such a disgraceful manner? These people are committing serious crimes every day and treating rape as 'the norm'. It makes me feel lucky to have been born here.

Semele

I work in forensic mental health in London and there are quite a few Congalese men detained on various wards. Almost all have rape and sexual assault convictions. The service has had to actually set up a special interest group to come up with ideas on how to treat them, because regardless of their mental illnesses, their offences stemmed so much from a cultural view of women as worthless subhumans that there is still a huge risk in releasing them even when deemed well.

They're so difficult to work with- they won't even speak to female staff and many of them have hit or groped female nurses. My manager was involved in trying to de-escalate a violent situation with one of these patients a while ago and every time she spoke he grabbed his crotch and started screaming "No c*ck, no talk!" at her. How can you even begin to reason with beliefs like that?

Earthhorse

Such sad stories. Sadly, the content of the article isn't news. It's hard to know what the tipping point will be for cultures like this, in which misogyny seems so ingrained.

Dudess

Semele wrote: »

I work in forensic mental health in London and there are quite a few Congalese men detained on various wards. Almost all have rape and sexual assault convictions. The service has had to actually set up a special interest group to come up with ideas on how to treat them, because regardless of their mental illnesses, their offences stemmed so much from a cultural view of women as worthless subhumans that there is still a huge risk in releasing them even when deemed well.

They're so difficult to work with- they won't even speak to female staff and many of them have hit or groped female nurses. My manager was involved in trying to de-escalate a violent situation with one of these patients a while ago and every time she spoke he grabbed his crotch and started screaming "No c*ck, no talk!" at her. How can you even begin to reason with beliefs like that?

Crikey. And is their mental illness "organic" or the result of their own experiences?

The Princess Bride

A former work colleague once told me about female patients in Arabian maternity hospitals- they were stitched (perineal/vaginal area) after giving birth -and their husbands would come into ward & have sex with them against their will (yes,we would call it rape,they would call it their right as husbands) Reason for this-: increased sensation for them as the wife would be 'like a virgin again '- was so horrified and frustrated when I was told this. Reading this thread- strange world we live in.

Semele

Dudess wrote: »

Crikey. And is their mental illness "organic" or the result of their own experiences?

Obviously it's never clear-but, but what is fairly certain is that their offending isn't a linear product of their illness. If it had any influence on it then it was in decreasing their disinhibition and attention to consequences. Even when "well" they don't consider themselves to have done anything wrong, beyond getting caught for it in this crazy country where people think such things are important. In comparison the other sex offenders in the service were clearly out of their minds at the time, had never done anything similar before and had a lot of difficulty coming to terms with it later.

The Congalese guys will quite happily say that it is a man's right to "take" sex when he wants it.

Truley

r3nu4l wrote: »

At a congress I was at recently I was talking to a paediatric cardiac surgeon who works in the Middle East. He told me that in many cases in the Middle East and Asia, parents (father AND mother) refuse cardiac operation on their children that will leave a scar, particularly daughters, simply because a scar will mean that she cannot be married off because she is blemished. It's not simply the men at fault on that issue, it's the acceptance of this stance by all of society that is the problem.

I don't know what can be done to change such ingrained beliefs.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I'm not sure what can be done to change such ingrained beliefs...what happened to cause the shift in social thinking here? Why did it suddenly become unacceptable to send pregnant girls to laundries?

Cultural beliefs are shaped from economic circumstance. For people like the parents and children you mentioned above, marriage is a gateway out of extreme poverty and a security blanket for the future of both the child and her parents. Of course the parents wanted the child to get better. But at the same time, they probably realized that by limiting their daughter's eligibility for marriage, they're going to be f**ked when she's older and has no way of supporting them financially.

Irish people stopped needing to exert such heavy control over their fertility etc when we got a generous welfare system to replace it. It's not because we're better people, we just don't need to form unions to survive anymore. We got lucky.