niyad
niyad's JournalThe Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement (trigger warning)
(a lengthy, horrifying, disturbing,angry-making, important read)
FUCK THE GODDAMNED CHRISTOFASCIST WOMAN-HATING GESTATIONAL SLAVERS
The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement (trigger warning)
4/7/2024 by Jodi Enda
American conservatives have been busy launching attacks on reproductive rights on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.
A teen mother breastfeeds her infant during a break from her classes at the Serene Haven Girl’s Secondary School, an informal school that boards underage mothers with their infants, some of whom are victims of sexual violence, in Kyeni, Kenya, on Sept. 24, 2021. The overwhelming stigma surrounding abortion means that many women resort to backstreet procedures that put their life in jeopardy or carry unwanted pregnancies to term. (Tony Karumba / AFP via Getty Images)
This article was originally published on The New Republic and was produced in collaboration with The Fuller Project.
Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera. Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me.
Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old. As traumatic as her experience was, Ochieng was more fortunate than many women in Kenya, which bans most abortions. She, at least, survived.
Like Ochieng, most Kenyan women facing unwanted pregnancies have no good choices. They live in a culture that gives women little agency over their bodies; they experience high levels of poverty—two-thirds of residents live on less than $3.20 a day—and they must contend with conflicts between abortion laws codified in the country’s 2010 Constitution and an older, harsher penal code that remains on the books. Because the penal code criminalizes abortion, relatively few women are able to obtain the procedure legally, and then only if a health professional determines that their life or health is in danger or, technically, if their pregnancy was the result of rape. That final exception dates only to 2019—13 years after Ochieng’s three acquaintances raped her—and is rarely applied. Despite the prohibitions, more than half a million Kenyan women have abortions every year. The small percentage with means might find a trained professional willing to perform a clandestine, but safe, abortion.
. . . .
One big reason: American anti-abortion policies.
For half a century, the United States has used the power of the purse to force poorer nations to abide by the anti-abortion values of American conservatives or forgo aid for family planning and, more recently, other healthcare. Of the several policies adopted over the years, two have been particularly onerous, according to several studies and more than 20 interviews with researchers and reproductive rights advocates in the United States and abroad. Touted to reduce abortions, the policies actually have driven up their numbers sharply and led to tens of thousands of unnecessary maternal deaths. “Anything that happens in the U.S. has a huge impact on the rest of the world,” said Giselle Carino, director of Fòs Feminista, an international alliance that promotes sexual and reproductive health and justice. When Washington places restrictions on abortion, “we have a lot of evidence how it hurts, particularly the women who need the most care and services.”
That anti-abortion policies would lead to more abortions seems counterintuitive, except when you consider that the organizations that perform, counsel and educate people about abortion are often those that provide condoms, pills, IUDs, and other forms of birth control. If healthcare providers so much as mention abortion, they can lose money for broader healthcare services, including contraceptives. Fewer contraceptives equal more unwanted pregnancies. More unwanted pregnancies equal more abortions. More abortions in countries that greatly restrict them equal more unsafe abortions. And more unsafe abortions equal more maternal deaths. The United States is not to blame for all the internal political and cultural strife in other countries. But as the largest funder of healthcare in the world, what it does matters. Essentially, this nation has given women around the globe no alternative but to seek backstreet abortions that send some to emergency rooms and others to their graves.
Anything that happens in the U.S. has a huge impact on the rest of the world. … Abortions happen anyway, the rule just makes it unsafe, and particularly unsafe for those women who are already in the most difficult circumstances in life.
Giselle Carino, Fòs Feminista
. . . .
The Population Connection Action Fund projects a message onto the Trump International Hotel to protest the global gag rule, which bans healthcare providers that receive U.S. global health aid from referring, providing or discussing abortion with their patients, on Jan. 23, 2019. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
. . . .
“When the U.S. is making any decision, the reality is it affects directly a woman who is on the ground and a woman who is very, very poor,” Ochieng said. “We cannot wait for so many women to die to have change.”
Sign up for the Fuller Project’s newsletter (https://fullerproject.org/sign-up-to-our-newsletter/), and follow the organization on X or LinkedIn.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/07/anti-abortion-usa-foreign-policy-hiv-aids-menstruation-helms-global-gag-rule/
My little amusement for the day: As I was wandering over to produce
at my King Sooper's this morning, I walked past a conversation that apparently concluded with, "It's all Biden's fault, letting in all those immigrants!" (something about supply chain issues, I gathered). As I came even with her, I muttered (loudly) "fucking idiot!" She beamed at me and said, "I agree!" I shook my head, and said, "No, I meant YOU!" She walked off in a huff. I did not see her the rest of the time that I was in the store.
I was in a great deal of pain, and, therefore, had even less patience than usual for the few idiots I encounter in my little, slightly bluer, enclave.
Just tried posting in Pets in response to Siwsan, and got that weird
error thing immediately.
Also tried posting a reply to your announcement, and it simply froze.
About the proposals to eliminate no-fault divorce. . a weird thought struck
me while reading DU'er moniss' most excellent OP:
These woman-hating patriarchal assholes are going to have to make laws preventing women from buying guns, poisons, etc., one would think. Maybe kitchen implements as well. Many medicines. Why? Obvious, yes?? You trap people into intolerable situations, some WILL find a way out. As a character in a recent novel stated, shaking and crying after just shooting her murderous, abusive husband, "Is he dead? I don't care if I go to jail, as long as he is dead."
Or, will the marriage rate decline? Birth rates? Will they bar women from professions again, hoping to force them into marital servitude?
Or, will women rise up in righteous anger, and stop this patriarchal, woman-hating insanity?
The Daily B***h*: "I am sorry for being a little s### earlier, but, in my
defense *motions at EVERYTHING!!!
*Both a noun, and a verb, depending on the context.
How many sexual assault/rape/trafficking survivors were triggered by
brittwit's so casually, without any warning, tossing out Ms. Romero's story? This is what I keep thinking about. Even if there was only one survivor who heard that, unprepared, and is now having a difficult time, I hope that katie, and everyone involved (including every single person defending her, or allowing her to lie about it),, receives everything they deserve. SMIB.
International Women's Day, observed as an official holiday in many
countries. But here, in the self-defined "greatest country in the world", women's rights are under attack at every level, regressive policies are increasing, threats are increasing. Other countries are moving forward, as the christofascist talibangelicals are trying to drag us backward.
Indigenous Bolivian women take up taekwondo against gender-based violence
Indigenous Bolivian women take up taekwondo against gender-based violence
Bolivia has one of the highest rates of gender violence, with 80 percent women experiencing it in their lifetime.
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Many dressed in traditional Aymara bulging skirt with woollen blanket and tall bowler hat over two long braids, the women start each session with a muscle warm-up. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
Published On 6 Mar 20246 Mar 2024
A violent attack by would-be robbers steered Bolivian Lidia Mayta towards the martial art of taekwondo. Three years later, she helps train other Indigenous women to defend themselves against rampant gender-based violence in the South American country. Mayta says she would have died if neighbours had not come out of their homes to scare off the assailants choking her outside her front door as they tried to steal her wallet. After the attack, she pledged she would never feel so helpless again. She joined a woman-only class at the Warmi Power taekwondo studio in Bolivia’s second city El Alto. Warmi means “woman” in the indigenous Quechua language. Her enthusiasm was such that the founders soon asked her to join the training team, helping in particular to translate instructions into Aymara, another of Bolivia’s indigenous tongues. “I didn’t know how to defend myself, now I try to help other women lose that fear,” the 56-year-old shopkeeper and community health secretary said. “This is a job of violence prevention.”
Government data shows that eight out of 10 women and girls in Bolivia suffer physical violence at least once in their lives. “This is a violent country for women,” said Lucia Vargas of Coordinadora de la Mujer, or Women’s Coordinator, a rights advocacy group. In 2023, more than 51,000 women reported falling victim to violence. Husbands or partners were the perpetrators in the vast majority of cases.
Warmi Power was launched by Laura Roca and Kimberly Nosa – both taekwondo black belts – in 2015. “Violence is not solved with violence, but learning to defend ourselves can save our lives,” said Nosa, who has been practising the martial art for 18 years. Roca is a trained psychologist who said she took up the discipline despite her father insisting it was the preserve of men. Together, the pair have trained more than 35,000 women countrywide. At the class in El Alto, most of the women are Indigenous and engaged in informal trade.
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Lidia Mayta, taekwondo instructor, works at her business in El Alto. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Most women have never dealt a blow in their lives and seem uncertain with their first air punches. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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But they soon get into the routine. They kick, they scream, and they learn to identify an assailant's weak spots. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Women's rights groups in Bolivia say gender-based violence is normalised in a society where many men see women as property. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Since 2013, Bolivia has had a specific law to protect women from gender-based violence. It prescribed a 30-year prison term for the crime of "femicide" - when a woman is killed for being a woman. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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But since the law entered into force, 1,085 femicides have been reported, and critics say not enough resources are dedicated to fighting gender-based crime in Bolivia. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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An Aymara Indigenous woman practises with taekwondo instructors Laura Roca (C) and Kimberly Nosa (R) during the personal self-defence and therapy workshop called Warmi Power to prevent sexist violence in El Alto. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Taekwondo instructor Lidia Mayta gives a lecture before the self-defence and therapy workshop. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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At the end of their class in El Alto, the taekwondo pupils walk one by one through a tunnel formed by two rows of women holding hands. "You're beautiful, you're powerful, you're valuable, you're a warrior, you're strong," they are told, and slapped on the back encouragingly. The class ends with a group hug. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/3/6/indigenous-bolivian-women-take-up-taekwondo-against-gender-based-violence
The UK's grooming gangs and the lessons never learned (trigger warning)
(sickening and heartbreaking and absolutely disgusting)
The UK’s grooming gangs and the lessons never learned (trigger warning)
It is high time for Britain’s criminal justice system to stop failing vulnerable girls victimised by predatory men.
Julie Bindel
Journalist, author and feminist campaigner
Published On 23 Feb 202423 Feb 2024
An independent report published in the UK last month found that girls in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale were "left at the mercy" of grooming gangs for years because of failings by police, council authorities [Al Jazeera]
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When it comes to official responses to criminal justice failures, the phrase “lessons will be learned” has become a wretched cliche. Once uttered by a cornered police chief or politician, it is hard to respond to it with anything other than raised eyebrows and a sardonic scowl because we have come to know it means nothing at all. I clearly remember it being repeated over and over again after the extent of child sexual exploitation in the northern town of Rotherham was exposed in the United Kingdom a decade ago. In August 2014, a groundbreaking report by former senior social worker Alexis Jay revealed that an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in the town from 1997 to 2013, predominantly by Pakistani-British men. It revealed that council staff and others knew of the abuse but turned a blind eye to what was happening and refused to identify the perpetrators in part for fear of being branded racist. The report laid bare the disastrous consequences of failing to prevent predatory men – of whatever racial background, for whatever reason – from accessing vulnerable victims. In response to the report’s damning revelations, so many in positions of power looked straight into the cameras and said “lessons will be learned.”
Tragically, however, what happened in Rotherham was not an anomaly. About 60km (35 miles) down the road in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, girls were also being abused, as they were all over the UK. Last month, the latest in a long line of reports found that the National Health Service crisis intervention team in Rochdale had referred 260 victims to children’s social care services and these referrals has “not been acted on over the years”. The report was commissioned by Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, when he was first elected in 2017. Covering the period from 2004 to 2013, the report identified at least 96 individuals who still pose a serious risk to children, most of whom have yet to be prosecuted. Apologising to the victims, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson promised a “day of reckoning” for those men. But so far, not one of the men identified in the report has been arrested. Every state agency, the review found, has failed hundreds upon hundreds of girls targeted by organised sexual abusers. In short, girls were “left at the mercy” of predatory men for years. Once again, authorities responded to the report with empty promises and platitudes. “Lessons will be learned,” they said.
. . . .
But the problem is neither immigration nor a particular racial or religious group. The problem is the incompetence of those tasked with protecting the most vulnerable in our society and a criminal justice system that is geared to fail all victims. Indeed, there are countless white, British-born men abusing girls and getting away with it in this country. In fact, the majority of child abusers in the UK are white men, most of whom are never reported to the authorities let alone prosecuted and jailed. The police forces working in areas with large Muslim, South Asian populations being reluctant to go after predominantly Muslim, South Asian grooming gangs in fear of accusations of racism is just one part of the problem. In many cases, girls subjected to such abuse, no matter the racial and religious background of their abusers, are not believed by the police – and at times they are even blamed for what happened to them.
. . . .
“What the police and CPS did to me was worse than the abuse,“ Amber told me. “I agreed to help the police to stop it happening to others. I trusted the police and thought I would be helped.” “I was the victim of these men at the age of 14. I should’ve been helped, not punished.” Amber is but one of the countless victims of sexual violence whose trauma has been compounded by shockingly poor police practice. Because she and others chose to speak out and call the police to task, it can no longer be denied that our criminal justice system is not fit for purpose. The extensive report published last month into the systemic failures in the handling of Rochdale grooming gangs is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Let’s hope that this time “lessons learned” means exactly that.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/23/the-uks-grooming-gangs-and-the-lessons-never-learned
Project 2025: The Right's Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women
(absolutely frightening, important read)
Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women
2/8/2024 by Carrie N. Baker
With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent—no matter what happens in future elections.
Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, during a news conference on government funding with the House Freedom Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government.
Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:
an 887-page policy agenda,
a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,
a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and
a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.
To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations—a who’s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives. The coalition includes Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women’s Forum, the Eagle Forum, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, Moms for Liberty, AAPLOG (the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Students for Life of America, Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty and Turning Point USA.
The white male leadership team of Project 2025. (“About Project 2025,” The Heritage Foundation)
. . . . .
Led and funded by multi-billionaires, such as oil moguls Charles and David Koch, conservatives have fought for years to cut taxes, deregulate business, ban abortion, eliminate civil rights protections as well as public health and environmental regulations, privatize government institutions such as public schools and prisons and eliminate welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance. In 2017, Donald Trump enacted many of these policies, which were later reversed by the Biden administration. With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent, no matter what happens in future elections.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/08/project-2025-conservative-right-wing-trump-woke/
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