Ravaged by war, displaced, and thrown into “refugee camps” in Northern Uganda, women and girls are having to struggle for basic rights. Eighty percent of women in Uganda engage in agriculture and yet only 8 percent own land.

Land disputes have threatened the resettlement of thousands of former IDPs. Many IDPs are leaving the camps for their native villages while widowed women and female orphans are left behind to fend for themselves.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says the security in these camps have been improving over the past three years.  But it’s hard to believe.  Two decades of war, some 2 million uprooted, the psychological impacts and loss of identity coupled with the prolong unhealed traumatic stresses, continue to take a huge toll.

Fifteen-year  old Maureen Aceng was born in a refugeee camp.  She now lives alone with her brother in a dilapidated mud hut. Her father was burned to death by the LRA in 2002 and then her mother died of illness. Her hope of returning to her parents village and recuperating their home and land is a distant dream.

“Traditionally in northern Uganda, much land was passed from generation to generation without official documentation,” said David Ben Okello, the IRC’s economic development manager in Uganda.

IRIN reports that at least 3,000 women and girls have no where to return.  For more detailed information see (pdf) Oxfam’s report “From Emergency to Recovery.”

The true costs of the Global Gag Rule may never be known. But it’s done with for now thanks to President Obama who reversed it in January. Two hundred and fifty health and human rights organizations from around the world sent him a signed letter of thanks.

Poor reproductive health is the leading cause of death among women in developing countries. Hundreds of thousands have died and many more have suffered.

In Kenya alone, it is estimated that 5000 women die every year from unsafe abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights says one in seven women in Peru are hospitalized from back alley abortions.  This was in 2003.

Ever since President Bush reinstated the ideologically driven anti-abortion policy in January 2001, hundreds of non-governmental organizations who receive United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding have had to shut down family planning operations or close altogether.

The policy also prohibited organizations who provided abortion related information or services  from obtaining female and male condoms, birth control pills, and intra-uterin devices.

USAID’s economic blackmail discriminated against poor women in developing countries. Blood is on their hands.  The gag rule has resulted in more deaths and more abortions.

The London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) says 36 million unplanned pregnancies and 15 million induced abortions occurred over the past eight years.

“It has undermined health systems and endangered the lives and health of the poorest and most vulnerable women on the planet by denying access to life saving family planning, sexual and reproductive health and HIV services and exposing them to the dangers of unsafe abortion.” - Dr Gill Greer of IPPF

Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch  Moscow, Tanya Lokshina, says the prosecutor in the Anna Politkovskaya murder case lost a crucial piece of evidence.

A video recording of the hitman pulling the trigger was “misplaced” a few days before the trial went to the Moscow District Military Court .  Two Chechens and a former police officer  were acquitted within two hours of deliberation.

In August 2007, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said the murder had been solved.  Ten suspects had been arrested and detained.  Criminal charges were dropped on all but three.  Yesterday, they walked free by a jury sealed off from the rest of the world.

The Kremlin is blocking efforts by the prosecution and other investigators.

“The entire corrupt system of law enforcement structures was engaged to block the work of the investigation,” said Novaya Gazeta Deputy Editor Sergei Sokolov.

The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Russia as the third most dangerous country for journalists.

Women who are raped have to marry their rapist says Syrian activist Mouna Ghanem.

“She is a victim twice. She is a victim the first time she gets raped and she is a victim the second time because she has to marry the man who raped her,” says Ghanem in an openDemocracy 50/50 podcast.

The Syrian Constitution states that its citizens have equal rights.  In the public life, women enjoy norms on par with men. But a personal statement code in the constitution means that a woman’s private life  belongs to men.

Another such discriminatory law deals with divorce. Men have the right to divorce without notifying or consulting their wives.  But it doesn’t end there.  She must also leave the house and is entitled to no financial rights.  She has no custody rights and if she were to get the children, the husband does not have to pay any alimony.  She is not allowed to remarry.

In Saudi Arabia there are no personal statement codes.  Judges instead treat cases one by one.   In many cases, women are forced into marriage or are simply written off if any male member, extended or not, wants her to divorce.

Fatima Bent Suleiman Al Azzaz was married to Mansour Ben Attieh El Timani.

When Fatima’s father died, her half-brothers took her to court to get a divorce on the grounds that she came from an “inferior background.”  The judge decided in favor of her half-brothers.  Fatima refused to recognize the decision and was sent to prison along with her one year old son for a year.

Her husband Mansour also refused to sign the divorce papers.  He is now “blacklisted” by the government.

Saudi Arabia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) but with a reservation.  It doesn’t actually have to observe any of its regulations. So why sign it?

The struggle of women around the world is an issue that needs much more attention.

“The  problem of violence against women has become so complex that laws and policies worldwide need to be changed to adjust to the reality,” said Yakin Ertürk, the outgoing Special Rapporteur on violence against women.

CEDAW was adopted in 1979 and is like an international bill on women’s rights.  But deep rooted discriminatory and sexist attitudes remain.  Even some of CEDAW’s own committee members are known to discriminate.

Last July a CEDAW committee member said that lesbians “are a small minority” “who don’t adhere to the prevails of nature.” The committee member then said that sexual orientation and gender discrimination would not be recognized in the committee’s text nor work.  A direct violation of its own article 2.

Sigh…

Map of CIA Rendition Flights

President Obama's Department of Justice will uphold the states secret defense used by Bush to prevent a lawsuit by five individuals who claim to have been tortured abroad under the controversial “extraordinary rendition” program.

The states secret privilege, developed by the Supreme Court in  1953, entitles the US government to block all evidence from ever reaching a court.  No one has the jurisdiction to look at the evidence. The federal lawsuit against the Bush Administration was launched by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2007.

The suit charges that the Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., provided the logistic support and flight planning to aircraft and crew used by the CIA to forcibly remove these individuals. According to the ACLU, one of the senior staff members of the Boeing subsidiary referred to the program as its “torture flight.”

Xenophobe and racist Dutch MP Geert Wilders is at it again.   Wilders leads the right-wing Freedom Party. Last year he released a controversial film that slams the Koran.  At the time, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, the Dutch Minister of Justice, said Wilders had the right to make the film.

Today, the story changes. His tirades against immigration and Islam may land him in jail.  In January, a ruling in an Amsterdam appeal court ordered the Public Prosecuting Office to  prosecute Wilders for inciting violence.

Wilders has hired a top notch lawyer to drop the prosecution order on the pretext of free speech.

He compares Hitler's Mein Kampf to the Koran and labels all Moroccans as "street terrorists." The Netherlands has the second largest population of Muslims in Europe after France.

Wilders sees himself as a jealous guardian of free speech but  sees no contradiction between his desire to ban the Koran and his free speech argument.

A poll claims the Freedom Party's popularity has since surged.  This is not surprsing. A 2006 Pew Global attitudes study claims (link opens to openDemocracy article) the Netherlands is the only country in Europe where a majority of its citizens have an unfavorable view of Muslims.

It's the ticking bomb scenario.  The bad guy is tied to a chair. A bomb is about to explode. The good guy shoots him in the leg.  20 seconds later, the information is disclosed and the world is saved.  It's Hollywood and TV magic at its best/worst and it's become primetime viewing throughout the US.

Jack Bauer of Fox's 24, Jack Bristow of ABC's Alias, and Detective Fontana of NBC's Law & Order all do it.  In season two of 24, a man is tortured with a defibrillator, while the US president watches on a monitor. Joel Surnow‚ the co-creator and executive producer of "24, said the military loves the show.  But the brass has its reservations.

“Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy….They would be wrong….While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.” Gen. David H. Patraeus, US Army Cmdr. Multinational Forces, Iraq - May 10, 2007

Before September 11, torture on American primetv was rare.  And when it did occur it was always the bad guy holding the knife or the wire.  Now the role has been switched. It's become patriotic to torture.

In 2000, there were 44 scenes of torture.  In 2003, that jumped to 228 according to the Parents Television Council.

Human Rights First has interviewed numerous former interrogators and retired military leaders.  They claim the US soldier is imitating what they see on TV.

"We had no official doctrine about what to do," said Tony Lagouranis, a U.S. Army Interrogator who was in Iraq in 2004-2005.  "So people were watching movies and watching TV and they were getting their ideas from that." Source here.

Primetime Torture by Human Rights First

How Hollywood Gets It Wrong on Torture and Interrogation