Women Affairs

Sold into slavery at the age of 12, Hadijatou Mani says she was forced to labour for her master and his family for 10 years. She quickly became one of several sexual slaves, or "sadakas" and was made to bear her master's children. She was subjected to regular beatings. Now the former slave from Niger has won a landmark case against her government, which a regional West African court found had failed to protect her. The court has ordered the government to pay her 10m CFA francs (£12,430; $19,750) in compensation. "I will be able to build a house, raise animals and farm land to support my family. I will also be able to send my children to school so they can have the education I was never allowed as a slave," Ms Mani said afterwards. The ruling could have broad implications for countries nearby where slavery is still practised, including Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali, according to observers. Human rights organisations say more than 40,000 people are still in sl...

SAM AWOYINFA You started quite early, featuring in a film titled Money Power (Owo Lagba), that was in the early 80’s. How has it been since then? Yes, the journey has been quite eventful. I featured in Money Power in 1982, I was just 14 and since then I have done several other plays. I appeared in Mirror In The Sun, a soap opera produced by Lola Fani-Kayode. Again, I have featured in a couple of home videos. It’s been quite interesting. I have equally featured in two stage plays, Yemoja and Idemili, both by National Troupe of Nigeria Could you compare the level of professionalism and production quality of works then with what obtains in the industry now? Money Power is a far cry from what we have today, as far as movie production is concerned. Money Power was shot in form of a film(16mm), and not in video format. So, the quality is higher. You did call me after Sunday Punch published the story on the glut currently being experienced in Nollywood, and said you wanted to make some other ...

According to the UN, 50 per cent of young women in the violent shantytowns of Haiti have been raped or sexually assaulted. Of the handful of victims who seek justice, a third are under 13. Alex Renton reports from a Caribbean hell crippled by poverty and torn by gang violence, and talks to the women who live in daily fear of sexual abuse Cité Soleil is called the worst slum in the western hemisphere. It's an ant hill of a third of a million people that seethes and swelters on the salt marshes between the blue Caribbean and the outskirts of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Soleil lies, as third-world slums so often do, next to the international airport, under the irony-laden roar of jets taking off to leave the country. One of these, a small passenger plane, crashed into the slum in September, the day we arrived. No one died, but it was front-page news in Haiti's daily papers. They told how, within an hour of the crash, everything had been stripped from the plane: the luggag...

Cindy Shiner Preliminary findings of a new study by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Columbia University may have given relief workers the evidence they say they need to focus greater attention on the problem of sexual violence in Liberia. Violence against women and girls, they say, has potentially far-reaching consequences on education, health and development in Liberia as it struggles to recover from 14 years of civil war. "One of the biggest or more common excuses that we hear [from governments and donors] when we try to bring up the issue of violence against women and girls is 'Show us the numbers if you say this is such a big problem,'" said Heidi Lehmann, senior technical advisor on gender-based violence for the IRC. Now, she said, the agency has the figures to back up what it has known through its work in Liberia for several years. The study, which surveyed 600 women and girls in eastern Nimba and central Montserrado counties, revealed communities r...

Minna and Fariba are neighbours and good friends. They support one another. Both have to live under the pervasive curtailment of women's rights and the double standards of today's Iranian society. They make a living walking the streets looking for men. They have a choice between leaving their small children at home alone or bringing them along when they have sex with men. The film is a sympathetic portrait of the two women, exploring their day-to-day life and the workings of prostitution in a country that bans it and prosecutes adulterers, sometimes with the penalty of capital punishment. Many of the clients find a way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law: they marry the women in what is called 'Sighe', a temporary marriage sanctioned in Shia Islam. Sighe can last from two hours up to 99 years. Both Minna and Fariba enter into Sighe with clients, and Fariba is in a Sighe marriage with a neighbour, Habib, that lasts six months. Giving his perspective on temporary ...

A Kathu Police investigations unit early Tuesday morning arrested an Indonesian adult-film producer in his hotel room after he was caught conducting a photo shoot with one of his starlets - a Thai ladyboy. Pol Sub Lt Nitikorn Rawang, duty officer of Kathu Police Station, said the bust took place at 4:20 am. After receiving a tip-off that a video shoot was taking place in room 314 of the Sup Inn on Soi Patong Resort, the police entered the room to find it had been converted into a makeshift studio with everything needed for the production of pornography and its distribution around the world via the Internet. Police arrested Indonesian Farisa Riyadi, 35, and took 32-year-old Thai ladyboy Phinit "Nong Ning" Lakharn, 32, for questioning at Kathu Police headquarters. Nong Ning, from Yasothorn, who has already undergone complete gender "re-assignment" surgery, told police that she agreed to pose for the Indonesian in return for 1,000 baht cash. Mr Riyadi offered the same ...

Somaly Mam doesn't know her birthday. She has no clue what her real name might be, or if she even has one. Somaly also doesn't know what her age was - though she reckons she was 8 or 9 - on the day she was sold into sexual slavery. She does remember, with complete clarity, the moment she vowed to murder her pimp. It was the night the guy gathered all his little girl prostitutes into a room and told them to tie up one of his slaves. Then, he shot her in the head. She was Somaly's best friend. "I'm the only one not crying," Somaly told me, and her gaze became stern, as if she can see the man's face. "I just looked at him. I decided that I would marry a rich man, get a gun and kill him." But Somaly didn't kill the pimp. Instead, she dedicated her life to saving little girls, like her, forced into the sex trade. Some are as young as 4 years old. That's how she's getting her vengeance. I met Somaly Mam last week at a Midtown restaurant to...

Fei Fei, a 22-year-old from China's Guangdong province, has a souvenir of her eight months in Dubai: burns on her back and arms from cigarette butts crushed against her skin when she refused to work as a prostitute. She eventually submitted when a criminal gang threatened to send nude photos of her to family members. That indignity, she said, would have been worse than selling her body. "They take pictures of me naked in shower," Fei Fei said in broken English as she pulled up her shirt to reveal the dark red circular marks. Soon afterward, she adopted the English name "Lucy," and sold sex in Dubai bars for 500 dirhams (USD $130) a trick to claw back her freedom. Fei Fei's story symbolizes the dark side of Dubai, better known for its skyscrapers, sail-shaped hotel and man-made islands built in the shape of palm trees. The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is the second-largest member, is on a US State Department watch-list for failing to take "meani...

Japanese women will frequently open up about their sex lives with partners, but when it comes to mentioning their masturbation habits, they tend to clam up, according to Cyzo. A survey the monthly carried out among 50 women in their 20s or 30s found that 90 percent felt it was perfectly natural for men to masturbate, but only 56 percent felt women should bring themselves off. Among the reasons women gave for believing sisters shouldn't be doing it for themselves were that female masturbation is "dirty," "embarrassing" and "something only women who can't find a guy would do." Sex therapist Kim Myung Gun tries to explain why masturbation has become such a taboo topic for Japanese women. "Masturbation for men involves expelling the pleasure outside of their bodies in an action that's kind of like expunging any other waste product. But for women, there's no ejaculation involved and all the pleasure remains inside them, so talking about mas...

The threat is real and the result can be ominous at times. Thailand has a commodity, resource and forward tactical force that can defeat the most valuable international assets. The form is a "hunter killer" team of assets that ultimately disable the foreign target. With cunning they move in an orchestrated tandem. In a target rich environment they split, and seek multiple opportunities and assets. In a target scarce environment they regroup, compare intelligence and take a consorted approach on a single high-value target. It is the "twin attack" of Thailand - and they show up in uniform and ready for action. Da (the elder sister) dons the uniform: spaghetti-strapped micro-shirt, miniskirt and "fuck me" pump stiletto heels. Fah - her "twin" - favors a low-rise heel and cuts her hair to match her sister's, both due to a slight height difference. Other than these differences their outfits are extremely similar. Hunter-Killer Tactics Da and Fah a...

In an attempt to escape poverty, women in China are increasingly turning to prostitution and competition for clients has reportedly resulted in lower pay and more dangerous conditions for China's estimated ten-million sex workers. Although prostitution is technically illegal in China, freelance sex workers operate openly throughout the country at every level of society, the International Herald Tribune reports. They work in bars and state-owned hotels as well as in poor neighborhoods. Although open prostitution in China is common today, it was nearly nonexistent a quarter of a century ago, reports Asian studies scholar Jinghao Zhou in China: an International Journal. The recent resurgence of prostitution, he says, comes from economic changes that have taken place in China over the last three decades -- rapid urbanization due to globalization, and the reform of China's market economy. Sociology and AIDS Policy Professor Jing Jun told the Washington Post that China's thrivin...

Many Asian women in Bahrain are being duped into working as sex slaves for men who lure them with promises of marriage, according to Thai Ambassador Phithak Phrombubpha. He says victims are put up in apartments and visited once a week by their boyfriends, who brainwash them into believing they will eventually live together and start a family. Mr Phrombubpha said women who want to escape are powerless to act as their passports are confiscated and once their visit visas expire they become illegal residents who rack up huge overstay fines that they have no means to pay. His comments come after one victim of human trafficking, who managed to escape from her captor, came to the embassy seeking help. The 25-year-old, whose identity is being protected, is being kept in an emergency accommodation in Zinj until she flies home on Friday. "These people come to Bahrain because of an economic problem and they want to earn money," Mr Phrombubpha told the GDN. "People recruit them by ...

A Perth woman will go to trial next year accused of handcuffing her soldier lover to a chair and sodomising him with a sex toy in an alleged hour-long sex attack. Nicola Clunies-Ross, 19, allegedly lured the Darwin-based soldier, also 19, to her East Perth home on October 28, 2006 and tricked him into being handcuffed and tied to a chair. Once he was secured, her soldier boyfriend, Peter Justin Gurdulic, 19, allegedly appeared and bashed her lover. Clunies-Ross and Gurdulic then allegedly both penetrated the soldier with a sex toy during an hour-long attack. Clunies-Ross has pleaded not guilty in the West Australian District Court to assault occasioning bodily harm, aggravated sexual penetration without consent and deprivation of liberty. She was granted bail. The court set down January 21 for her trial. Gurdulic, who was from the same Darwin regiment as the victim, was found dead at Leeuwin Barracks in November 2006 after being charged over the alleged attack. There were no sus...

Actress Zhang Yu, who became widely known for revealing the "sex-for-work" scandal in the showbiz industry, has made another attempt to fight against the system on Wednesday, by trying to report 13 more directors for such abuses of power. Upon her invitation, a reporter from the Beijing Morning Post accompanied Zhang Yu to a nearby office of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of China in Dongcheng district, Beijing, on Wednesday afternoon. "As I have already lost lawsuits against those directors, I think it will be hard to prevail through more appeals to the court. Thus I have decided to report them," Zhang Yu told the reporter. At the commission office, Zhang Yu submitted a letter listing sex deals involving 13 directors. However, after looking through the letter, a commission officer said such cases were not included in their scope of administration, as the commission was only responsible for supervising party members and ...

Companies involved in trafficking persons and tricking victims through false advertisements in the print media, will not be allowed to thrive, as the Government institutes measures to prevent and suppress the crime. "The police are on a very intensive drive, going into [these] places," said Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Chairman of the National Task Force Against Trafficking in Persons (NATFATIP), Carol Palmer, at a recent public forum on human trafficking, held at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library. "Reports now reflect that people have closed down their operations because of police going up on their businesses," Mrs. Palmer pointed out, assuring that the police were being "trained to understand the crime and how to use the investigative methods to get at these persons." Speaking at the same forum, which targeted some 300 students from schools in the Corporate Area, Youth Empowerment Officer, National Centre for Youth Developm...

A number of Latin American women who were victimized in what federal officials say was a major prostitution ring are living in safe housing, getting psychological counseling and other assistance, and may qualify for special US visas for sex trafficking victims who cooperate with law enforcement. The steps are just the beginning of a recovery process that could take a lifetime, said Linda Miller, executive director of the Civil Society in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of several Twin Cities organizations that works with victims of sexual violence. "It's not possible to change people back to what they were before the crime," said Miller, "but it is possible to stabilize them and get them into a situation where they can deal with the present and the future. They will probably carry the scars their whole lives." The women were rescued during a law enforcement sweep last month that uncovered eight brothels in otherwise ordinary-looking houses and apartments in Minneapolis...

The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Tuesday busted a organized human smuggling operation which forced women from mainland China into prostitution across the greater Taipei area, the CIB announced this week. CIB agents arrested three men and five women in Taipei County on Tuesday after being tipped off on the human smuggling operation late last year. CIB said that the operation acted behind the front of a corporation named "Yiu Chia Li" in Taiwan to solicit men to engage in prostitution. Mainland women who were told to enter into false marriages with Taiwan men in mainland China were brought into Taiwan on grounds of joining their husbands. The highly organized operation collects a fee from the women for brokering the false marriages while paying for Taiwan men who are willing to use their names in the marriage documents. The culprits then will operate under arrangement with hotels to locate its customers or directly send the women to the customer's residences. The...