NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2009
Women World Wide
by Mary Jo Grey
Women in Uganda celebrated a victory in August after intense public protests led to the re-arrest of the police commander, James Peter Aurien, for the self-confessed murder of his wife. Domestic violence is a daily occurrence in Uganda, with 78% of women experiencing some form of abuse. In 2008 over 70 women were killed by their spouses, with the number on the rise.
--Information from Inter Press Service News Agency
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Women's and human rights organizations in Mexico are fighting the confirmation of Arturo Chávez Chávez as the country's new attorney general, accusing him of covering up the mass murders of women and the disappearances of men in Ciudad Juárez in the late 1990s. Mothers of femicide victims organized a public protest in Chihuahua City, with Women in Black and other groups staging similar demonstrations.
--Information from Mexidata.Info
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Women have been the target of violence for nearly two decades in Haiti, despite five years of UN peacekeepers. Kidnapping, criminal violence, gang warfare and armed confrontation have increased the number of reported cases of sexual violence against women and girls. Last year the number of rapes increased 40% from 1,100 to 1,600. Nicole Magloire, of Haitian Violence Against Women, feels these numbers are due to women feeling safer reporting the crimes.
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More than 200 women and men from 17 states traveled to Nebraska at the end of August in support of Dr. Larry Carhart, one of the few physicians in the U.S. to provide late-term abortions. Federal marshals stopped protecting his clinic despite the right wing's murder of Dr. George Tiller in May, and a new campaign targeting Carhart by Operation Rescue. Pro-choice demonstrators outnumbered anti-choicers 3-to-1.
--Information from Feminist News
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