Globalization, Human Rights & Security

From Human Rights Watch:

Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 former detainees, including two women, who described being sexually abused or witnessing sexual abuse in detention, including rape, penetration with objects, sexual groping, prolonged forced nudity, and electroshock and beatings to genitalia.Many of the former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they were imprisoned because of their political activism, including for attending protests. In other cases, the reason for the detention was unclear but detainees suffered the same abusive tactics.

“Syrian security forces have used sexual violence to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The assaults are not limited to detention facilities – government forces and pro-government shabiha militia members have also sexually assaulted women and girls during home raids and residential sweeps.”

Human Rights Watch documented over 20 specific incidents of sexual assault, five of which involved more than one victim, that took place between March 2011 and March 2012 across Syria, including in Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Damascus, and Latakia governorates. The majority of cases were from Homs governorate. Interviewees described a range of sexual abuse by Syrian security forces, the army, and pro-government armed militias referred to locally as shabiha.

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From MSNBC / AP:

The late Tuesday assault was the last straw for many. Protesters and activists met Wednesday to organize a campaign to prevent sexual harassment in the square. They recognize it is part of a bigger social problem that has largely gone unpunished in Egypt. But the phenomenon is trampling on their dream of creating in Tahrir a micro-model of a state that respects civil liberties and civic responsibility, which they had hoped would emerge after Mubarak's ouster.

'It shouldn't be happening'
"Enough is enough," said Abdel-Fatah Mahmoud, a 22-year-old engineering student, who met Wednesday with friends to organize patrols of the square in an effort to deter attacks against women. "It has gone overboard. No matter what is behind this, it is unacceptable. It shouldn't be happening on our streets let alone Tahrir."

No official numbers exist for attacks on women in the square because police do not go near the area, and women rarely report such incidents. But activists and protesters have reported a number of particularly violent assaults on women in the past week. Many suspect such assaults are organized by opponents of the protests to weaken the spirit of the protesters and drive people away.

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From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The Corps plans to open 371 jobs to women under a Defense Department “exception to policy” overriding longtime ground combat restrictions. Women already serve in air combat, on battle ships and at the brigade level of ground combat units. The new jobs allow them to formally serve at the battalion level.

The first batch of 44 female Marines, including 14 officers and 30 senior non-commissioned officers, were cleared to begin new assignments Friday with artillery, tank, amphibious assault, combat engineer, combat assault, and low altitude air defense battalions, according to Marine Manpower and Reserve Affairs at Quantico, Va.

They will serve with 19 battalions across the Marine Corps’ three divisions, in administration, communication, motor transport, logistics, and supply jobs.

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From the AFP:

The high mortality rate in Mexico's drug war has seen women progress quickly in the shadowy underworld of the cartels and they are increasingly taking on key management roles, a new book says.

"Female Bosses of Narco-Traffic," by Arturo Santamaria, a researcher at the Autonomous University of the State of Sinaloa, traces the ascent of women in drug trafficking organizations.

"The narco-traffickers will become stronger as a result of this," wrote Santamaria. "They will be more difficult to fight because the women appear to be acting smarter."

An estimated 50,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a government crackdown on organized crime that has set off turf wars among rival groups even as they fight off the Mexican military's counter-narcotics units.

Santamaria said the dead have been mainly males belonging to the cartels, which has led to a changing of the guard with younger men and women rising to the top of drug trafficking organizations.

"Widows, daughters, lovers and girlfriends of the men, who are part of the same criminal families," have had to lend a hand, he said.

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From Women's eNews:

As a participant at the nongovernmental organization forum that accompanied the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, I witnessed a delegation of Korean "comfort women" survivors who were trying to call attention to their victimization as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II.

By then, they were no longer young and some indeed looked frail, but they made a powerful and striking presence to demand recognition of their history.

In the early 1990s, Kim Hak Soon was the first former comfort woman to speak out, at the age of 67, and her testimony inspired other women to do the same. Within one year more than 200 other Korean women who had been enslaved as comfort women came forward. They have joined together, supported each other and shared their experience.

A local monument to these brave women was the subject of a startling May 19 story in The New York Times. The first surprise was my own ignorance of the monument, just across the Hudson River from New York City, in Palisades Park, N.J., where more than half of the population is of Korean descent. Since it's the only one of its kind in the U.S., it seemed strange that it had not attracted widespread publicity and become a major pilgrimage site for women's advocates.

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