More than any other part of the world, this area seems to have the most violent, out-of-control tempers I have ever heard of. Why do you think that is?
Iraq: Husband sets wife on fire following family dispute
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Police launch manhunt after he fled, woman in hospital with severe burns
Published: April 22, 2021 15:58
Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent, Gulf News
An Iraqi man set his wife on fire following a spat due to a family dispute.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Cairo: An Iraqi man set his wife on fire following a spat due to a family dispute, local media reported, citing security sources.
The 35-year-old man lost his temper during the altercation, doused petrol on the woman and set her ablaze in the area of Al Mahmudia, south Baghdad, the sources added.
Severe burns
The 37-year-old woman was hospitalised with severe burns. The husband fled after the attack, prompting a manhunt from local police. Details of the dispute were not immediately available.
In recent months, Iraq has seen a series of family crimes partially blamed on economic woes compounded by an outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Report condemns nations that still use 'vaginal tests' for rape victims
By Clyde Hughes
April 23 (UPI) -- A report released Friday said that rape victims in multiple South Asian nations are still being subjected to humiliating and unscientific "vaginal tests," which advocates say are violations of women's and girls' human rights.
The 70-page report, produced by women's rights organization Equality Now and Dignity Alliance International, said the tests are still being performed in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- and at times are even used in court cases.
The report says rape tests are still being done in India, even though they are technically illegal there.
Such tests are invasive and involve a medical practitioner physically determining whether a woman's genitalia has been altered. Most medical professionals have long said the test has no scientific value.
"It is demeaning and inhuman," said Sumeera Shrestha, executive director of the Nepali organization Women for Human Rights, according to The Guardian. "It is not just about whether rape has happened, but it's like testing your virginity."
Friday's report said Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka all allow the vaginal test, which dates back to colonial times, as evidence in court to detail a rape victim's sexual history. The assessment also said the test is part of a much larger problem of sexual violence against women throughout Southeast Asia.
"This report focuses on the problems that women and girls face while accessing the criminal justice system," the report states. "They are met with apathy and neglect at all levels, often resulting in the withdrawal of the case or long delays in adjudication.
"Despite the pervasiveness of sexual violence across the region, the laws in all the South Asian countries contain certain protection gaps which leave women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence."
'No voice': Child brides left out of India's domestic violence data
By Roli Srivastava, Thomson Reuters Foundation
MUMBAI, April 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Child brides being beaten by their husbands will no longer be included in India’s biggest survey of domestic violence - potentially hiding the problem and making it even harder for married girls to get help.
India’s national health survey is a mine of statistics on key social indicators - from fertility rates to immunisation, marriage age to gender-based violence, and is used to craft government policies and pinpoint charity spending.
“Studies have shown that many experience violence in the first year of marriage ... now their story won’t get highlighted,” said K.G Santhya, senior associate with the nonprofit Population Council.
“What gets measured gets acted on ... there’s no evidence now to talk about their experience of this violence,” Santhya added.
Early marriage heightens the risk of domestic slavery, spousal violence and poor health with girls married under the age of 15 almost 50% more likely to have experienced either physical or sexual intimate partner violence, campaigners say.
India accounts for more than 20% of the world’s adolescent population and the highest number of child marriages in South Asia, according to the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF).
India began asking questions about domestic abuse as part of the national health survey in 2005-06, after the country’s Domestic Violence Act was passed.
Since then, the research has shined a light on a largely hidden form of violence against women, and revealed that few women go to the police to report abusive husbands.
“We use the survey in our campaigns, on our pamphlets and to hold orientations (of grassroot workers). This is authentic data, there is no other similar survey in the country,” said Venkat Reddy of child rights non-profit MV Foundation.
THE SURVEY
Officials said they dropped the under-18 age group because the survey’s confidentiality clause was at odds with India’s child protection law of 2012, which demands that all cases of child sex abuse must reported to the police.
The survey requires researchers to conduct the interviews in private over a few days. Until the last survey, women and girls were asked if they had ever been slapped, punched, kicked or forced into sex by their husbands.
S.K. Singh, professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences, which conducts the survey, said they had no choice but to exclude the under-18s from future interviews in light of the new child protection rules.
“As per our ethical protocol, we’re committed that whatever information we get is kept confidential and not shared with anyone. That’s why there was a huge dilemma before us,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Not shared with anyone! Not even the police! But such crimes 'must' be reported to the police according to the 2012 law. It appears you are getting around that law by burying your heads in the sand like an ostrich.
“So we came to this conclusion that if we take 18 plus, our ethical issues are protected in the context of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. There’s no other option.”
The health ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Campaigners said excluding 15 to 18-year-olds from the survey’s domestic violence chapter was distorting statistics.
“States are showing a drop in domestic violence cases and it needs to be understood that an entire vulnerable population was not asked about it,” said Padma Deosthali, a health rights campaigner.
Fourteen of 20 states whose survey reports were published have shown a decline in domestic violence cases, data reviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation shows.
Most child marriages are reported in rural communities that often consider verbal abuse or a child being slapped in her marital home as reactions to disobedience on her part, campaigners said.
Only 14% women who suffered domestic violence sought help from the police, and of them only 3% reached out to the police, the health survey data shows.
“These girls lack the support to report the matter to the police as they ask for a family elder to accompany them. Schools do not have an enabling environment for adolescents to discuss these matter,” said Indira Pancholi, founder of women’s rights non-profit Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti in Rajasthan.
"Dropping this data on them is a mistake. These girls have no voice," she said.
Jordan: Man cuts off nephew's genitals to spite his brother-in-law
Baby was immediately taken to the hospital, where doctors reattached the private parts
Published: May 01, 2021 15:41
Tawfiq Nasrallah
Dubai: A Jordanian man in his 20s chopped off the private parts of his 18-month-old nephew over inheritance disputes, local media reported.
The crime took place in Zarqa Governorate, the third-largest governorate in Jordan by population.
According to police reports, the suspect, who is a drug addict with many drug-related cases against him, wanted to take revenge on his sister’s husband for interfering in their family’s inheritance issues.
He is said to have taken the baby from his father’s house to the fourth floor of the building where they reside, brutally beat him, cut off his private parts and ran away.
The child was immediately taken to the hospital where doctors managed to reattach the genitals.
Zarqa police apprehended the culprit within hours of committing the crime and will be referred to public prosecution for legal actions.
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