Breastfeeding will be 'duty, not option' for women in the UAE

30/01/2014

Questions of bottle or breast being best won't even come into the equation for new mothers in Abu Dhabi after a new law was passed requiring them to breastfeed their children until the age of two

The Federal National Council's Health, Labour and Social Affairs Committee agreed to a clause in the Child Rights law which makes breastfeeding a "duty, not an option, for able mothers".

The breastfeeding clause was passed by the state's Federal National Council last week. It will be part of a new Child Rights Law, the country’s first comprehensive child protection and rights legislation, which is currently being debated, The National newspaper reported.

A member of the Social Affairs committee, Salem Al Ameri, called breastfeeding until two years of age a "right" as stated in the Quran.

Related: Financial incentives to breastfeed "a waste of money"

While an impractical law to enforce, women will be punished for non-compliance with husbands able to sue their wives for not breastfeeding. Minister of Social Affairs, Mariam Al Roumi, is against the ruling, saying “This part of the law can be a burden,” she said. “If the law forced women to breastfeed, this could lead to new court cases.”

And while the law supports the rights of the child, it does not address the rights of the mother.

Spokesperson for the Australian Breastfeeding Association, Nicole Bridges, told Practical Parenting, "Mother's shouldn't be forced to breastfeed, rather they should be supported and encouraged to make the right choices for their family".

Related: Breastmilk supply and demand: your questions answered

While it is difficult to speculate about other countries and cultures, Bridges thought it was unlikely to raise breastfeeding rates or have a positive impact on families. "You can't simply pass a law forcing mothers to breastfeed. The best way to get new mothers to breastfeed is through education and support".

She also expressed concerns about the possible negative impact on mothers who are not able to breastfeed, saying "Breastfeeding should be a choice, and it is not always the right choice for all families".

Bridges says such a move would never happen in Australia and the UAE is the first government she is aware of having passed such a law and so the results will be interesting to see.

West Bengal gang rape: Supreme Court orders probe into 'disturbing' case

25/01/2014

India's Supreme Court has ordered a judge to investigate the gang rape of a tribal woman, allegedly on orders of village elders who objected to her relationship with a man.

The 20-year-old woman is in hospital. Her condition is reported to be stable.

Describing the case as "disturbing", the court ordered the district judge to visit the village and submit a report.

Thirteen men, including the village headman, have been arrested. Villagers have denied that any rape took place.

Unofficial courts in India's villages often sanction killings of couples deemed to have violated local codes.

Scrutiny of sexual violence in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus.

The government tightened laws on sexual violence last year after widespread protests following the attack.

But violence and discrimination against women remain deeply entrenched.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam and comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and MY Eqbal, expressed shock over the incident on Friday.

The judges have set 31 January as the date for hearing the case.

'No rape'

On Thursday, West Bengal police said the woman belonging to the Santhal tribal group was gang-raped on Monday night for her relationship with a non-tribal man from a nearby village in Birbhum district.

The couple, who were in a relationship for almost five years, were caught on Monday when the man visited the woman's home with the proposal of marriage.

During the 'proceedings' of the kangaroo court, the couple were made to sit with hands tied. The man and the woman were each fined 25,000 rupees ($400; £240) for "the crime of falling in love".

The man paid up, but the woman's family were unable to pay, after which the headman, a distant relative of the woman, allegedly ordered the rape.

The suspects were produced in court on Thursday and remanded in custody. They have not yet made any public comment.

But on Friday, the entire village denied that the 20-year-old woman had been gang-raped.

The couple were caught in a "compromising position" and kept tied for the night in the headman's house, several of the villagers told the BBC's Amitabha Bhattasali when he visited the village.

But, they said, the village women "had taken turns to guard the couple at night" and denied that there had been any rape, our correspondent reports.

Clan-based village councils made up of local elders wield great influence over life in large swathes of rural India and often mete out punishments for offences deemed to contravene local traditions and mores.

The incident has led to outrage in India with some describing it as "inhuman and completely outrageous" and many calling for a quick trial and punishment for the rapists.

On Thursday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ordered the removal of the district police chief.

Controversial rape law amends in Morocco

 In this Saturday, April 7, 2012 file photo, Zohra Filali, mother of Amina Filai, right, delivers a petition to the Moroccan government to stop the law which allows rapists to marry their victims and thus exonerate themselves, in Casablanca. — File Photo by AP

23/01/2014

RABAT: Morocco's parliament on Wednesday unanimously amended an article in the penal code that had outraged people by allowing a rapist to escape prosecution if he married his underage victim.
Article 475 of the penal code generated unprecedented public criticism about the case of Amina al-Filali, a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry a man who allegedly had raped her.
After seven months of marriage to the 23-year-old man, she committed suicide in 2012. Her parents and a judge had forced the marriage to protect the family honor.
The incident sparked calls for the law to be changed.
The traditional practice for forced marriage can be found across the Middle East and in countries such as India and Afghanistan, where the loss of a woman's virginity out of wedlock puts a huge stain on the honor of the family or tribe.
While the marriage age is officially 18 in Morocco, judges routinely approve much younger unions in this deeply traditional country of 34 million with high illiteracy and poverty.
While Morocco passed a new family code in 2004 that was more progressive concerning women's rights than in the past, efforts to boost women's rights have often run afoul of Islamists. Activists had called for a wholesale revamping of the country's laws dealing with rape.
However, in this case it is just an amendment of the existing article deleting the language allowing the assailant to marry his victim to escape prosecution.
''It is true that this is just a detail compared to all of our demands but it had to be done,'' said Nezha Aloui, of the Union for Feminist Work. ''I salute the mobilisation and maturity parliament showed by voting unanimously.''
Aloui and other activists are pushing for a law outlawing violence against women.

Indian village council orders gang-rape of woman as punishment

23/01/2014

KOLKATA: A woman was gang-raped by some 12 men on the orders of a village council in eastern India as punishment for apparently having an affair, a police officer said Thursday.
The council ordered the horrific penalty to be carried out in a village in West Bengal state on Tuesday night after the 20-year-old woman was discovered with a man from another community, a senior officer said.
Police have arrested 12 people over the attack which was meted out after the woman's parents said they could not pay the fine of 25,000 rupees (400 dollars) imposed by the council for having the affair.
“The girl was gang-raped for having an affair with a youth of another community and failing to pay the fine which was imposed by the village council,” district police superintendent C. Sudhakar told AFP.
“We have so far arrested 12 people in connection with the incident.”The attack again casts India's record on sexual violence back into the spotlight after national outrage over the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012.
The incident also echoes an attack on a woman in neighbouring Pakistan in 2002 on orders of a village council to avenge her 12-year-old brother's alleged impropriety with a woman from a rival clan.
Six men were sentenced to death for the rape of the illiterate Pakistani woman Mukhtaran Mai in a landmark ruling there. But five were later acquitted and the main culprit had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.
The incident in India took place in Subalpur village, about 240 kms west of state capital Kolkata, after the couple were discovered on Monday.
“The head of the village council held an urgent meeting in the village square on Tuesday when the girl and her lover were called,” Sudhakar said.
“The girl and her lover were tied to two separate trees and fined 25,000 rupees each as a fine for having an affair,” he said.
“As the parents of the girl, who were also present at the meeting, expressed their inability to pay the fine, the head of the village council ordered that she should be raped by the villagers as punishment,” he said.
The man apparently involved with the girl was freed after he agreed to pay the fine within a week, he said.
The woman was recovering from the attack in a hospital.
Last month, India marked the first anniversary of the death of the 23-year-old student who was gang-raped in New Delhi on a moving bus, in an attack that sent shockwaves across the nation.
Despite tougher laws and efforts to change attitudes to women in India's deeply patriarchal society, the number of reported sex crimes continues to rise.
Earlier this month, a Danish woman was allegedly gang-raped and robbed in the capital after she became lost on her way back to her hotel.

Polio workers shot dead in Karachi:Pakistan

21/01/2014

KarachI:Three polio workers have been killed in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, a day after authorities began a new vaccination drive, officials say.

Reports say gunmen opened fire in the Qayumabad area, killing one man and two women administering polio drops.
The attack is the latest in a series targeting polio teams in the country.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose the polio schemes, which they see as a cover for international espionage.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic and is indeed on the rise, due in part to this militant resistance to polio mass vaccination campaigns.
Nigeria and Afghanistan are the others, but WHO officials have stressed that progress is being made in these countries.
Earlier this month India declared itself polio-free, three years after its last reported case - a landmark in the global battle against the disease, and largely due to a massive and sustained vaccination campaign.
But Pakistan has witnessed a campaign of violence against health workers, who militants also accuse of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims.
In December three people working on polio vaccination teams were shot dead in north-west Pakistan, even though the vaccination scheme won the backing of a prominent religious seminary said to wield influence over Taliban groups.
The latest attack comes one day after health authorities in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, began to inoculate 7.6m children as part of a nationwide. vaccination campaign.