The 75-page report, “No Money, No Care: Obstetric Violence in Sierra Leone,” documents cases of verbal abuse, medical neglect, and abandonment of women and girls facing serious obstetric complications, practices that experts interviewed say are common. Many women interviewed said they were shamed and mistreated by healthcare providers for expressing pain, needing help, or for not having enough money to pay fees. Others described humiliating experiences in which healthcare providers treated them brusquely or withheld important health information. Some cases documented constitute obstetric violence, a largely unaddressed form of gender-based violence prevalent across the world.
Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand
Thousands of Burmese women and girls are trafficked into Thai brothels every year where they work under conditions tantamount to slavery. Subject to debt bondage, illegal confinement, various forms of sexual and physical abuse, and exposure to HIV in the brothels, they then face wrongful arrest as illegal immigrants if they try to escape or if the brothels are raided by Thai police.
The Widespread Rape of Somali Women Refugees in North Eastern Kenya
While the tragedy in Somalia made daily news, the plight of thousands of refugees in neighboring Kenya remains unpublicized. Since 1992, approximately 300,000 Somalis have fled across the 800 mile Kenya-Somali border, most of them women and children. Many were the victims of violence, including rape, as they fled war-torn Somalia.
Over 70 percent of women in jail in Pakistan report sexual abuse by police officials. Despite the high incidence of rape and sexual torture of female detainees, no police official has been subjected to criminal punishment for these abuses.
The Cairo-based Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA) was ordered dissolved by an administrative decree dated June 15, 1991. The action was taken pursuant to the 1964 Law of Associations which regulates private voluntary organizations in Egypt. AWSA actively promotes women's rights in Egypt and the Arab world. The founder and president of AWSA, Dr.
The Brazilian government is failing to prosecute violence against women in the home fully and fairly. Despite ever-increasing domestic violence (particularly wife-murder, battery and rap) impunity and discriminatory treatment in favor of the perpetrators of domestic violence are still the rule in the Brazilian justice system.
he Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA), headed by Dr. Nawal El-Saadawi, a well-known writer and leading figure in the Arab women's movement, has been ordered dissolved by the Egyptian authorities. AWSA will contest the dissolution order in legal proceedings scheduled to begin on October 31 before the State Council Court.
