Global Issues affecting Women
Women in Darfur
The reality for hundreds of thousands of women in Darfur. They have been driven from their homes by the janjawid- the state backed militia who use rape and violence to terrorise civilians. Now they are forced to live in unhealthily overcrowded camps. The women must leave the camps to collect water and firewood. They can't send their husbands for fear they will be killed. But if they go themselves, they will almost certainly be raped.
Rape is being used as a weapon of war.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/076/2004
Women in Afghanistan
The life expectancy of women in Afghanistan is just 47 years, over 85% of women and girls are illiterate, 5% of secondary school aged girls are enrolled in school, 54% of girls under 18 years are married, an estimated 15,000 women die each year from pregnancy related causes.
WOMANKIND works in Afghanistan providing support and safe space for women.
15 year old Saliha is serving seven years in jail alongside hardened criminals. Ostracised from her family and village, Saliha was convicted of escaping from home and illegal sexual relations. The first carries a maximum penalty of 10 years, the second 20.
Two thirds of the women in Lashkar Gah's jail have been convicted of illegal sex, but most are rape victims. The system does not distinguish between those who have been attacked and those who have chosen to run off with a man..
Women in Yemen
In Yemen, child marriages is common but has rarely been exposed in public until recently. 11year old Arwa Abdu Mohammad ran to a local hospital to complain her husband had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months. She was the second child bride to come forward in less than a month, in April, a 10 year old named Nujood Ali had gone by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark legal case.
Pulled out of school and forced to have children before their bodies are ready, many rural Yemeni women end up illiterate and with serious health problems. Their babies are often stunted too. The average age of marriage in Yemen's rural areas is 12 to 13. poverty is one reason so many Yemeni families marry their children off early. Another is the fear of girls being carried off and married by force. But most important are cultural tradition and the belief that a young virginal bride can best be shaped into a dutiful wife.
