violence against women

Brexit protesters, near Parliament, London, January 2019. Women will likely take the biggest hit from Britain’s exit from the European Union, say rights specialists in the country and a UN rights advocate. 
NOTTINGHAM, England — It has been more than two and a half years since Britain voted to leave the European Union. As the rest of the world knows, nothing since then has gone smoothly. It’s not even clear where most voters stand on the issue today. But despite the nonstop debate, women’s voices continue to be almost entirely sidelined.

Afghan migrants in Iran are leaving in droves for urban areas back home as US sanctions squeeze Iran’s economy. The influx could further destabilize Afghanistan, with young male returnees vulnerable to recruitment by insurgents. A Kabul bazaar, above. FARDIN WAEZI/UNAMA 

The author, an Australian who has been researching the lives of women and girls worldwide, risked traveling in Afghanistan by herself, yet she said she would return, despite the problems she met. Here, a woman heading into the village of Ishkashim, near the Tajikistan border. JOHANNA HIGGS

Protests against a new overtime law in Hungary, Dec. 12, 2018, Budapest. Women who defend human rights are subjected more than ever before to a range of threats, from online trolling to torture, a new Swedish report finds. 

Wendi Winters, a reporter and editor with the Capital Gazette, in Annapolis, Md., was one of three female journalists murdered this year worldwide, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The Gazette was attacked on June 28 by a gunman who also killed four others in the ambush. Winters, who was 65, was a mother of four children who apparently charged the gunman, thus saving others’ lives.

The House Republicans have always hated the Violence Against Women Act-- first passed in 1994-- and yesterday Roll Call reported that they plan to use the cover of the lame duck session to let it lapse. "The law was set to expire Sept. 30, but it was extended through Dec. 7 under a stopgap spending bill that expires this week. Text of another short term spending deal was released Monday and does not include a VAWA extension, according to Republican aides in both the House and Senate."

A memorial service was held for the six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who died during clashes with the ADF militia in the Congo on Nov. 15, 2018. Seventeen members of the same UN force intervention brigade were killed nearly a year ago battling the ADF. MIRIAM ASMANI/MONUSCO 
United Nations peacekeepers working for the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed by a militia in a jungle in North Kivu Province on Nov. 15, leaving seven soldiers dead: six Malawians and one Tanzanian. Ten were injured.

Police on horses escorting migrants after they crossed from Croatia in Dobova, Slovenia, Oct. 20, 2015. A new UN global compact on migrants is to be formalized at a conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, in early December, before the UN General Assembly adopts it through a resolution. The United States is working against the compact’s approval and is pressuring other countries to follow suit.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, has sent a directive to higher-education institutions in his country to ban the teaching of gender studies. The reaction from many circles opposing the rule has been swift. 
In the doldrums of a European summer, when many universities are mostly closed or short-staffed, the populist Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban sent a directive to higher-education institutions on Aug. 9 forbidding the teaching of gender studies.

-by NoahBack in 1994, Congress passed Senator Joe Biden's Violence Against Women Act by a bi-partisan vote (Times were different way back then). The act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The new law provided $1.6 Billion to investigate and prosecute those charged with violent crimes against women. It also imposed automatic mandatory penalties for convictions, and also provided for redress via civil cases.