Mission & Justice

Kevin Pamba; 31/10/08

Oppresive systems such as the culturally-induced male dominance and thinking pattern in PNG will exacerbate poverty which is already felt in some quarters of the country, an academic said. Dr Anastasia Sai, a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at the Divine Word University (DWU) in Madang, said on Wednesday that it was time to change the customs and practices that disadvantaged the people if national ills like poverty were to be successfully addressed. Speaking on gender balance in nation-building at the symposium on media and governance organised by the DWU through its faculty and AusAID, Dr Sai said the status quo left half of the human resources (women) of PNG out of the development equation. She said this anomaly should be corrected if the country had to progress and national problems were to be effectively addressed.

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Rana Husseini; 30/10/08

Criminal Prosecutor Tareq Shqeirat on Wednesday said he charged a 25-year-old man with premeditated murder in connection with the death of his sister who was stabbed over the weekend for reasons related to family honour. The 19-year-old victim, who was not identified by officials, was stabbed to death, allegedly by the suspect, on Saturday at their family home, one official source told The Jordan Times. The suspect then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in and handed over the knife he allegedly used in the murder, the source added. “The suspect claimed that he killed his sister after seeing images of her engaging in sexual activities with a man on a mobile phone,” the source said.

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Rana Husseini; 30/10/08

The Criminal Court on Wednesday sentenced a 40-year-old man to death after convicting him of raping a minor in an Amman neighbourhood. The defendant stood motionless and did not utter a word as presiding Judge Mohammad Ibrahim read out the verdict in court. The defendant was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl nine times over a one-month period in January of this year. The court said the defendant, a refrigerator repairman, saw the girl when he went to work on her grandmother’s fridge, according to court papers. The defendant asked the victim to come home with him so he could “introduce her to his mother, because she knew some men who were interested in getting married”.

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Yair Ettinger; 30/10/08

The young woman exudes strength and independence. But she bears the sign of a head fracture and scars on her face. One night, a few months ago, men broke into her apartment through the front door. They beat her up and humiliated her, knocking her head against the floor. They threatened to tear gas her if she tried to interfere with their rummaging through her possessions. And they left her bleeding on the floor. To whom could she go for help? Her family turned its back on her when she chose to divorce her ultra-Orthodox husband; her children were taken away from her; and the neighbors in her building cold shoulder her. Now it transpires that the authorities can’t help either. The investigation that began with a great deal of media fuss, has ended in failure. That, of course, took place far from the public eye. Elhanan Buzaglo is currently being tried in a Jerusalem court.

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Sean Parnell; 29/10/08

Kevin Rudd appears to have made peace with the Exclusive Brethren, whom he publicly derided as an “extremist cult” in his run to The Lodge, by allowing for secret talks between church and government representatives. In the lead-up to the election campaign, the Exclusive Brethren actively lobbied then prime minister John Howard but was given short shrift by Mr Rudd. The Labor leader publicly attacked the church, labelling it an extremist cult that “breaks up families”. The ALP called on four federal agencies to investigate its activities and went to great lengths to avoid contact with the church. The Exclusive Brethren, which two years ago hired PR firm Jackson Wells Morris to help counter bad press, still wanted a relationship with the new government and in March made representations to Mr Rudd’s then chief of staff, David Epstein.

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Padraic Murphy; 29/10/08

Expectant indigenous mothers on Cape York will receive $1000 baby packs as part of a groundbreaking campaign to improve prenatal and postnatal care in remote communities. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said yesterday the packs would drastically increase the health of the 300 babies born across Cape York every year, and their mothers. “Over the next two months, the baby baskets will be rolled out in at least four priority communities in Cape York, giving mothers vital education and tools to help them through pregnancy and the birth of their babies,” Ms Bligh said. The Australian revealed in July that the Queensland Government had been urged to consider the move by doctors Lara Wieland and Richard Heazlewood, who had forged their careers in indigenous health. The doctors told a Cairns medical conference that early childhood care in remote communities needed to be overhauled, as not only was the baby bonus often squandered, but it was a trigger for domestic assault.

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P.K. Abdul Ghafour; 29/10/08

The Riyadh Women’s University, which is designed to become the world’s largest institution of higher learning exclusively for women, will have 13 colleges, including those for medicine, dentistry, nursing, naturopathy and pharmacology and a 700-bed hospital. The project will be completed by 2010. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will lay the foundation stone today for the university’s new campus. “After we received instructions from higher authorities to establish a full-fledged university, we have consulted international engineering houses for the purpose of designing a world-class campus that can accommodate 40,000 students,” said Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf. “It will be the largest specialized campus for women in the world,” he added

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28/10/08

When Jordan signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, three major reservations were entered by Jordan concerning the right of women to pass on their nationality to their offspring, their right to housing and their right to travel. Now women activists are calling, and they are absolutely right, on these reservations, which go against the letter and spirit of the convention, to be repealed. When this international human rights treaty demands the end of all forms of discrimination against women, it defies logic to maintain three major prejudiced rules that affect some of their most important rights. It mystifies most modern rationalisation why traditional forms of discrimination against women persist.

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Azhar Masood; 28/10/08

Pakistan police yesterday said that they will probe allegations that a young newlywed was mauled by dogs and shot to death in front of her father in the latest so-called “honor killing” to prompt outrage in Pakistan. According to police and rights activists, 17-year-old Tasleem Solangi was killed back in March in a rural area of Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh. The girl was falsely accused of immorality and had dogs set on her as a punishment before she was shot dead, the girl’s parents said yesterday. Gul Sher, father of the girl, demanded justice for the killing of his daughter after he said a council in their village in the southern province of Sindh falsely accused her of having sex with a man. “They made dogs run after her and bite her then she was shot dead,” Sher told reporters in Karachi.

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Hassna’a Mokhtar; 28/10/08

Lubna Alam, 35, was once a successful banker. She longs for the excitement and independence it brought her. Yet, she recalls the reasons that forced her to quit her job. She became fed up with her supervisor’s sexual harassment. “My supervisor used to call my mobile late at night for trivial reasons. When I ignored his calls, he’d be rude to me the next day at the office. Whenever we held a meeting, he’d vulgarly comment on my looks or my clothes. It was psychologically and emotionally disturbing, and I didn’t know what to do,” said Lubna, nervously popping her fingers. Lubna bent a lot of rules to keep working but was tiring of the situation. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when her supervisor gave her two choices: To go out on a date with him or resign.With the absence of a legislated system that governs the relationship between men and women in the workplace, Lubna’s situation is a common problem.

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