Violence

"Bangladesh was singled out from two neighboring countries for its strong measures to stop acid attacks on women in a Jan. 27 report.

In a study of the crime in Bangladesh, Cambodia and India, researchers found that Bangladesh had taken the most proactive approach to decreasing the attacks by enacting legislation, a no-bail policy for perpetrators and forming a national council to regulate corrosive solutions and enact a policy of treatment and rehabilitation for victims.

Whether the attacks follow a perceived wrongdoing or are simply the response of a spurned suitor, thousands of women in the South Asian region around Bangladesh have had sulphuric acid sprayed or poured onto their faces, eliminating facial features, causing blindness and fusing skin together, forcing them into a life of health problems and social isolation." 

 "Since President Calderon began to take on Mexico's crime cartels in 2006, the country's drug war has taken a total of 34,612 lives, nearly half of which were claimed solely in 2010. Unbeknown to many, the deaths resulting from organised crime have also coincided with the murder of over 4,000 women since 2006 from causes unrelated to the nation's drug war.

While violence toward women is not new to Mexico, the estimated number of female deaths suggests a callous disregard by Mexico's government of this growing phenomenon. According to human rights organisations, femicides rose by 130% between 2009 and 2010, resulting in a total of 446 murdered women only last year. This worsening epidemic has led local authorities throughout the country to downplay the mounting violence by misclassifying murders, attributing deaths to drug violence, or simply under-report the figures."

"For every case of rape reported to police in Alaska, the state that consistently posts the nation's highest rate of sexual assault, another nine cases likely go unreported, according to a new study presented on Monday to the state legislature.

The study, conducted by the University of Alaska Anchorage's Justice Center and cooperating researchers, found that 37 percent of surveyed Alaska women had been victims of sexual violence, and 4.3 percent within the last year.

The 871 women surveyed for the study reported "astonishingly high" rates of sexual violence, said Andrew Rosay, director of the university's Justice Center.

"More than one out of every three experienced sexual violence at some point in their lifetime," Rosay told state senators at a committee meeting held on Monday in Juneau."