Latest Updates: domestic violence RSS

  • johnpi 8:11 pm on November 18, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    A Danish public service announcement against domestic violence is drawing outrage and criticism from around the world. The online-only interactive PSA is in the form of a game called “Hit the bitch.”

    In it, the viewer uses the computer’s mouse to use a virtual hand to slap the woman in the video. The site has a ranking in each corner – one for “pussy” and one for “gangsta.” The viewer starts the game with a 100% “pussy” rating, but each blow to the woman – who becomes progressively more bruised and battered – causes the “gangsta” rating to go up and the “pussy” rating to go down.

    The game ends when the “gangsta” rating reaches 100% at which point the viewer is show the woman lying on the ground swollen, bruised, bleeding and crying.

    Play the game here.

     

  • johnpi 4:57 pm on October 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, ,

    Muslim group, Maigret honored for helping abuse victims.

    The Muslim women’s group RAHAMA and Assistant U. S. Attorney Richard Maigret have been selected to receive The Buffalo News Founders and Susan Still awards, presented by the Family Justice Center of Erie County.
    ….

    Carrie Irish, president of the Family Justice Center’s board of directors, said RAHAMA, which is also an Arabic word for “mercy,” is being recognized for giving Muslim women “a place to turn for hope and guidance when they need it most.”

    RAHAMA, active since July 2006, spreads awareness about the problems of domestic violence and provides education on the rights of Muslim women. It works with social service and law enforcement agencies that deal with domestic violence to ensure that culturally appropriate support — emotionally and spiritually — is provided to Muslim domestic abuse victims.

     

  • johnpi 12:18 pm on October 10, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    Saudis in denial over scope of violence against women and children.

    It came as something of a shock when I learned the other day that the number of domestic violence cases in Saudi Arabia does not exceed 650.

    What a relief to live in a country where violence against women and children is virtually non-existent. This good news comes from none other than the man who should know: Ali Al-Hinaki, the general manager of Social Affairs Department in the Makkah province.

    Al-Hinaki told a Jeddah reporter that there are no statistics on the number of abuse cases, but he estimated that there were no more than 650. Yet the Social Affairs Department does not explain that if there are so few domestic violence cases in Saudi Arabia, why is there the need to sponsor this week a three-day awareness forum in Jeddah? Or why establish 17 committees to deal with family protection? By Social Affairs Department’s logic that amounts to 38 abuse victims per committee. Now that is what I call great response to such a minor issue.

    But all kidding aside, this ridiculously low statistic is an insult to every Saudi woman and child whether or not they have been the victim of abuse. There are more than 27 million people – 22 million of which are Saudis – living in Saudi Arabia. Just how did the law of averages elude the Social Affairs Department?

     

  • johnpi 5:19 am on October 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, , , religious courts,

    Women in Lebanon are campaigning to take domestic violence cases out of religious courts.

    As lawmakers struggle to form a government three months after Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, women’s rights activists await the opening of parliament to debate a new bill on domestic violence.

    In Lebanon’s multi-confessional democratic system, cases of domestic violence are ruled on in one the country’s 15 religious courts, or family courts.

    The new bill proposes to take domestic violence out of the (mainly Christian and Muslim) religious courts and into the civil system and will cut across confessional lines.

    (via)

     

  • johnpi 3:24 pm on October 4, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, , , , ,

    A McClatchy feature article on the eight US states that allow insurance companies to designate domestic violence as a “pre-existing condition” for grounds to deny health care coverage.

    “This is insane,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who’s been trying to convince Congress to address the issue for roughly a decade.

    Murray said she couldn’t remember exactly when she first learned of it, but sometime in the 1990s she recalls a private conversation she had with a woman who broke down as she explained that she couldn’t flee an abusive relationship because her children were covered under her husband’s health care plan and she couldn’t get her own. Another woman told Murray that she didn’t report that she’d been battered because she feared losing her coverage.

     

  • johnpi 6:28 pm on September 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: child custody, domestic violence,

    Domestic violence is on the rise in Afghanistan: A 12-minute video report from a womens shelter in Afghanistan.

    Notable for having captured one husband on tape admitting he and his son tried to electrocute his wife, while also admitting he was mistaken in thinking she had had an affair. Oops…

    Sad ending when the husband eventually gets custody of all of the children.

     

  • johnpi 5:38 am on September 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    America: A place where society is structured for cruelty to women.

    Nine US states allow insurance companies to consider domestic violence a pre-existing condition, and use that to deny insurance claims to pay for medical treatment.

    Eight of the 16 large insurance companies in the US have done so, according to reports.

    …in DC and eight other states, including Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming, insurance companies have gone too far, claiming that “domestic violence victim” is also a pre-existing condition.

    Here’s a government report, published in 2000, that concludes:

    Domestic violence is one of the most powerful predictors of increased health care utilization.

    Amanda Marcotte explores the repercussions:

    Obviously, the major one is that the fear of losing insurance coverage might drive victims to avoid reaching out for help, and it may even mean that they don’t get treatment for their injuries after an abusive incident. And of course, the less a woman reaches out for help, the less likely she is to get out of the situation. In addition, one form of control that abusers use over their victims is financial dependence, and impoverishing a woman by denying her health care coverage will only make her more dependent on the abuser.

     

  • thabet 3:18 am on August 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, , ,

    The person behind this ’sociological image’ needs to read the following books: How to Lie with Statistics and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

    The subject matter — domestic violence against women — is bad enough without distortion through rubbish graphics.

     

  • johnpi 5:20 pm on August 17, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    Kuwaiti wedding party fire that killed 43 women and children was deliberately set by vengeful ex-wife.

    Al-Qabas said the 23-year-old woman had confessed to police that she used petrol to torch the packed wedding tent on fire to avenge her ex-husband’s “bad treatment” of her before their divorce.

     

  • johnpi 8:29 pm on July 27, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, , , ,

    Krista at MMW begins a conversation about the recent killing of three sibling girls and their mother in Canada. I really appreciate her approach to this incident, relative to some other coverage there (Aqsa Parvez) which I felt was more purely a defensive response. Krista wants to challenge media coverage that dogwhistles anti-Muslim generalizations and prejudice while not sweeping aside the underlying issues within the Muslim community either.

    From an update:

    …my original goal for this post was actually to use this article as a starting point for trying to figure out how to have these conversations about violence within Muslim communities, in ways that address the violence properly and fully, without feeding into perceptions of Muslims as all uniquely violent/patriarchal/oppressive in ways that other religious and/or cultural communities aren’t. I wanted to come back to a question of how to engage with some of the more problematic media representations without ignoring the actual problems that are happening.

    She’s bringing up something that I think must be a central issue for other Muslim bloggers, and certainly something that I think about when I post here at TI.

    Particular to my own situation as a convert, I want to discuss, address and confront issues in the Muslim community that diminish my iman and tend to drive me away from Islam in order to recover myself to the religion and not get stuck, but I don’t want to feed the Jafis and the general prejudices of the society against Muslims in the process.

     

  • Kawthar 1:43 am on May 10, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    Helplines in Saudi Arabia fail to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence.

    A victim of domestic violence told Arab News she is disappointed at the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), which she said was unable to protect her from her abusive husband. The victim, who is based in the southern region, said: “It took me three days to reach them. Each time I would call, they would tell me to call later. When they answered they told me that they are a monitoring body and not an executive body, and that they can’t provide me with security.” The woman, who asked her name not be published, said an employee told her that if she asks for divorce then she would be transferred to the Reconciliation Committee, and if she demands a shelter then she would be referred to a government-run women’s shelter. “I need protection from my husband who abuses me physically and emotionally, and nothing more,” she added.

     

  • johnpi 6:08 am on April 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, ,

    In India: Divorces become more common as romance gains importance.

    Another issue – Muddled domestic violence laws:

    Because a court-ordered divorce can take 15 years, women’s attorneys often advise them to file dowry or domestic violence cases against their husbands instead, says Geeta Luthra, a lawyer who works on divorce and other women’s issues. The criminal courts are equally slow, but the threat of being arrested and spending time behind bars while their lawyer argues for bail exerts pressure on men to settle. That’s unfortunate, Luthra says, because the “eight false cases” are making the one genuine dowry petitioner more difficult to believe.

    The domestic violence act of 2005 poses another kind of threat: An abused wife can be awarded any “matrimonial home” that she resided in during her marriage — whether or not her husband holds the deed. “The idea is that by scaring the husband and his family they’ll force them to settle. And the settlement basically means money,” Banerjee says. “The law is certainly being abused. That’s not my assessment, that’s the assessment of the high court and the supreme court.”

     

  • johnpi 7:48 am on April 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , domestic violence, , ,

    Saffiyah at Muslimah Media Watch explores the media coverage of the alleged slaying of a two-year-old child by a Muslimah who insisted that she be allowed to wear her hijab in her police mugshot. The request was denied and the distraught woman’s picture was released to the public. Much more coverage focused on the hijab than on the death of the child – a situation that was not helped by the many comments made by the woman’s husband defending her right to cover but failing to mention the death of the child. As Saffiyah concludes, “The real insult to the religion of Islam is the killing of a two year old, not the photograph of a suspected murderer sans hijab.” (Previous posting and discussion about this at Talk Islam here.)

     

  • johnpi 6:57 am on April 13, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, , , , , , , spousal rape

    (UPDATE by Aziz: Note that Wayne Ross vehemently denies ever making such statements, and the evidence does seem tissue-paper thin)

    “If a guy can’t rape his wife…who’s he gonna rape?” and “There wouldn’t be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouths shut.”

    Patriot Boy consoles the president of Feminists for Life of America Serrin Foster over rising criticism of Sarah Palin’s choice for Alaska attorney general Wayne Anthony Ross, who made the comments above.

    Patriot Boy writes to Ms. Foster:

    Surely, there is nothing more feminist in its very nature than spousal rape. It empowers wives by providing them with the means of gratifying the head of household even when they are not in the mood. If you look at it that way, support for spousal rape is perhaps the greatest innovation in feminist thinking since crotchless pantaloons.

     

  • shahed 7:24 am on April 10, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , domestic violence, , ,

    Here’s an article about Islam being “insulted” by a mugshot (sans headscarf) of a woman arrested in Illinois. Muslim organizations (save for CAIR) were reluctant to comment, probably because the woman is accused of beating her 2-year old niece to death while in her care. (Nobody seems to want to comment on that aspect, either.)

     

  • thabet 12:43 pm on March 16, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, ,

    An ‘explotatory’ survey (pdf) by the Home Office on attitudes to violence against women in England and Wales.

     

  • johnpi 6:49 am on March 14, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    Muzzammil Hassan has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering his wife.

     

  • aziz 10:09 pm on March 3, 2009 | 11 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Aasiya Husain, domestic violence, ,

    Zahed Amanullah offers his own take from a UK perspective on the Gallup survey of American muslims. I’m not sure I agree with all of this:

    For those that immigrated, the doors were open primarily to the professional and academic (student) classes – essentially pre-westernised and pre-assimilated. This allowed American Muslims to strip the cultural crust from Islamic practice more effectively than in any other country. Conventional attitudes towards gender roles, ritual practice, and participation in wider society are harder to enforce, allowing an American Muslim identity to form more rapidly

    While it is true that immigrants tended to be professional class and were partly pre-assimilated and pre-westernized, in my experience the cultural element (among Desi muslims) remains quite strong. The good and the bad – as poor Aasiya Zubair Hassan would surely attest.

     

  • aziz 5:37 pm on March 3, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence,

    Asra Nomani investigates the history of domestic abuse of Aasiya Z. Hassan by her husband. It is heartbreaking to see how much was going on in plain daylight, but Aasiya had nowhere to turn. Hopefully her murder will change that for other muslim women.

     

  • abunoor 3:59 pm on February 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence,

    I don’t think anyone else has linked here to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s khutbah on domestic violence in the wake of the murder of Aasiyah Hassan. You can watch a Youtube of the Khutbah here. You can hear Hamza Yusuf interviewed about it on NPR here.

     

  • johnpi 1:29 pm on February 27, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence, ,

    Coming to a household near you – Economic crisis brings the “culture of poverty” into the homes of upwardly mobile, educated suburbanites (of any race):

    There was a fairly large layoff at IBM in Armonk, N.Y. The people who were laid off were, for the most part, upwardly-mobile, educated white suburbanites and IBM was considered a lifetime employer. After the layoffs, there was an increase in domestic abuse, drug use and alcoholism — and behavioral problems in children in school. Those are things we associate with the so-called “culture of poverty” that supposedly holds people back from prosperity, especially poor people of color. But there really isn’t a “culture of poverty.” When you’re faced with economic uncertainty, it places you in a position of extreme stress — no matter what your class or race background is. And that anxiety is going to be apparent in the classroom, where more children will be manifesting the signs of a stressful home life. As this crisis unfolds, it’s going to become increasingly clear to teachers that the “culture of poverty” isn’t a valid idea.

    Excerpted from an article for schools on what changes to expect among their students of any economic stratum, and how they can effectively respond – provacative for administrators and teachers in private Islamic schools too.

     

  • johnpi 3:02 pm on February 24, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Brigette Gabriel, domestic violence,

    Comic Bill Maher invited the particularly invidious Islamophobe Brigette Gabriel onto his season-premiere show to talk about the Aasiya Hassan slaying and spread misinformation.

    While Maher was just exploiting the irony of the story, his via satellite guest for the segment, Brigitte Gabriel, was given a forum to further her fear-mongering cause….This story is pure gold to someone like Gabriel, whose mission is to spread a message that no Muslim-American, no matter how “assimilated” they may appear, can be trusted. With her glee in proclaiming on Real Time that Muzzammil Hassan had called the police to “brag” that he had murdered his wife (this is not true), Gabriel came across to the audience as a funny, personable guest. To those of us familiar with Gabriel, however, her glee was taken as something quite different.

    The real Brigitte Gabriel is a woman who has said that Muslim-Americans shouldn’t be allowed to hold public office, instructs people to contact the F.B.I. if they see a mosque being built in their neighborhood, and has said that Muslim-Americans, “Are good at nothing but complaining about every single thing.”

    For the purpose of correcting misinformation introduced into the public sphere, let’s reiterate: Muzzammil Hassan never called the police to “brag” about killing his wife.

     

  • johnpi 10:38 pm on February 23, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence, ,

    The insufferable M Zudhi Jasser, self-appointed spokesman of the “anti-Islamist” Muslims (“Devout anti-Islamist Muslims who have long dedicated our lives to…”) and star of the Muslim fear-porn flick “Third Jihad,” waded into the Aasiya Hassan slaying story on Fox News with some uninformed commentary alleging her death was an ‘honor killing.’

    “The most dangerous aspect of this case is to simply say it’s domestic violence,” he said, which would have been overwrought but not so objectionable if he had been talking about an actual honor killing, but this was not an honor killing. Aasiya Hassan was the victim of classic, conventional domestic violence that happens in all communities of every cultural, religious and socio-economic strip.

    At the Muslimah Media Watch roundtable tonight, Fatemeh and Krista decisively blow the “honor killing” distraction out of the discussion. Recommended reading.

     

  • fathima 8:37 pm on February 23, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: aqsa pervez, aqsazine, domestic violence

    AQSAZINE Issue# 1 Launch

    We’re holding a launch party for the zine on Thursday Feb 27th from 7 – 9 at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore located at 73 Habord Street.

    Join us for a night of readings, spoken word, poetry by Muslim women in Toronto and beyond from the forthcoming AQSAZINE Issue #1: resistance and self defense.

    Artists include: Shadi Eskandani, Rosina Kazi, Golie and many more.

    More on the zine:

    AQSA Zine is a grassroots print zine, as well as an on-line community (aqsazine.blogspot.com) that is open to all women and trans people who self-identify as Muslim (13 to 35 years old). It is a creative avenue for us to express ourselves, share our own experiences, and connect with others. In Arabic, “aqsa” implies the furthermost, as in reaching out to furthest possible. Aqsa zine aims to inspire struggling to the utmost that we can. “Aqsa” is also the first name of the 16-year-old Muslim woman, Aqsa Parvez, who was murdered by her family members on December 16, 2007. We recognize her murder as physical form of patriarchal violence, and the response to her murder from public institutions as Islamophobic, racist, and patriarchal. This zine is also inspired by Muslim young women and trans people who experience and resist violence. We work within an anti-racist, anti-Islamophobic, anti-imperialist, pro-choice, queer and trans positive framework. Our aim is to organize and document grassroots movements of Muslim young women and trans people working to end violence in all its forms.

     

  • johnpi 7:10 pm on February 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    A team of reporters from the Buffalo News has put together a comprehensive report on the lives of Muzzammil and Aasiya Hassan, including looking at court records and police reports from both New York and Texas, where Aasiya had contact with the police.

    An observation from a member of her MBA class: “Other classmates said Aasiya needed help distinguishing between cultural Pakistani norms regarding a woman’s place and what was clearly a “severe pattern” of abuse.”

    If true, why didn’t other Pakistani Muslims who knew them pick up on this and educate her? The Quranic injunctions against gossiping are distorted when they prevent otherwise rightly guided Muslims from intervening in what – if accurately described here – was an obviously evil situation. Also, to the extent that the “severe pattern of abuse” goes unchallenged, the behavior is being modeled to others such that it increasingly becomes part of the norm.

     

  • johnpi 6:57 am on February 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: domestic violence,

    NPR story: ‘Domestic violence In Muslim America.’

    Host Scott Simon talks with Robina Niaz, the founder and executive director of Turning Point, the first non-profit agency to address domestic abuse in New York City’s Muslim population.

    Talk mainly about the death of Aasiya Hassan.

     

  • aziz 9:12 am on February 20, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 4:34, , domestic violence, ,

    Laleh Bakhtiar, Ph.D. explains how Qur’an verse 4:34 translates to “go away” rather than “to beat” in her book, The Sublime Qur’an.

    The Sublime Qur'an by Laleh Bakhtiar

     

  • aziz 12:30 am on February 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence, ,

    Broken Mystic has a great post about Aasiyah Hassan and domestic violence. Of of the better ones I’ve seen out there.

     

  • aziz 11:30 pm on February 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence,

    Here’s the official press release for the friday khutbas against domestic violence.

    I think that this should be an annual event, every third friday of February. Aasiya Hassan Day would be a yearly occassion for mosques to devote time and attention to the issue of domestic violence. Only by repeated action can we make headway against this problem.

     

  • aziz 3:24 pm on February 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , domestic violence,

    press release condemning the murder of Aasiya Hassan by two NYC women’s groups serving the muslim community.

     

Older Posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
esc
cancel