Women Affairs

'They said they were going to give us ostrich eggs,' Esther Mbarga, aged 49, recalls. "'They're huge,' they said. 'Come and we'll give them to you.'" Aged ten or eleven, she and her friends had never seen an ostrich egg. They were really excited. They were taken deep into the bush and waited expectantly. Then, one at a time, they were led off to have their genitalia mutilated. Esther was pinned to the ground by four women and cut by a fifth. She limped away bleeding and crying. It was hard to walk and urination was incredibly painful for days afterwards. For some reason, the women weren't happy with the excision. On further checking they decided that there was more to cut. They cut more the following day and yet more a week later. Esther lives in Burkina Faso where female genital mutilation is not legal but is still carried out covertly. Female genital mutilation comprises 'all procedures involving partial or total removal of the exte...

Nigeria's porous border with its northern neighbor Niger is being exploited by traffickers smuggling teenage girls to Europe where they will work as prostitutes, immigration officials told IRIN. "Our 910 kilometer boundary with Niger is too much for us to police which provides human traffickers an advantage to conduct their trade of smuggling young girls to Europe for prostitution," Oemi Bio Ockiya, head of the Nigerian immigration department in Kano told IRIN. Ockiya said girls are transported from the southern part of Nigeria to Kano from where they are driven to Libya through Niger and then shipped to Europe, their final destination, for prostitution. The traffickers convince the girls and their parents that lucrative jobs await their victims, but force them into prostitution once in Europe by holding on to their passports. The trafficking of young women to Europe through Kano has been a common occurrence. Hitherto the traffickers would smuggle their victims through Ka...

Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying. The two were found guilty of adultery -- a capital crime in Islamic Iran -- after the husband of one sister presented video evidence showing them in the company of other men while he was away. "Branch 23 of the supreme court has confirmed the stoning sentence," said their lawyer, Jabbar Solati. The penal court of Tehran province had already sentenced the sisters identified only as Zohreh, 27, and Azar (no age given) to stoning, the daily said. Solati explained that the two sisters had initially been tried for "illegal relations" and received 99 lashes. However in a second trial they were convicted of "adultery." The pair admitted they were in the video presented by the husband but argued that there was no adultery as none of the footage showed them engaged in a sexua...

Female genital mutilation (FGM), often referred to as 'female circumcision', comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons. There are different types of female genital mutilation known to be practised today. They include: * Type I - excision of the prepuce, with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris; * Type II - excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora; * Type III - excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching/narrowing of the vaginal opening (infibulation); * Type IV - pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris and/or labia; stretching of the clitoris and/or labia; cauterization by burning of the clitoris and surrounding tissue; * scraping of tissue surrounding the vaginal orifice (angurya cuts) or cutting of the vagina (gishiri cuts); * introduction o...

Cormac Mac Ruairi A woman in dark robes places a prayer mat on the floor and she begins to pray to Allah. She is surrendering to her God and Allah's wishes as expressed in the holy Koran. When the camera moves closer, we see all is not as it first appears: her garments are transparent and her breasts are clearly visible. The Koran forbids all Muslims — men and women — to show themselves naked in public. And though it is probably not strictly banned, we can only imagine the quotes from the Koran written in calligraphy on her body must also breach the spirit of Islamic religious law. The depicted texts from the Koran deal with the perscribed punishments for women who "misbehave". As the film continues, we hear four tragic stories of women being forced into arranged marriages, being whipped, beaten and raped. We see images of backs marked by a whip and a woman's face reduced to a bloody pulp by her man's fists. All the time these women, we are told, are meant to surr...

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 ...

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...

Punjab may be moving ahead with legislation to stop travel agents from cheating youth with the lure of foreign pastures, but such touts are now baiting young girls into the multibillion immigration racket. The revelation that girls and young women are being targeted has come after some of them were rescued from foreign shores this month. The tragedy for these cheated women was that not only were they not taken to the promised destinations for lucrative jobs, but were also being forced into prostitution in other countries. 'This is an alarming development and the centre and state governments should take action immediately. Our daughters from Punjab are being forced into prostitution in other countries,' former federal minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia told IANS. His Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) has been spearheading the campaign against unscrupulous travel and immigration agents in Punjab. LBP activists rescued four Punjab girls from Singapore and other countries where they were stuck...

India has introduced a new measure where women who have not completed high school would be allowed to work in foreign countries only if they are above 30, in order to ensure their safety. This rule applies to all women in the Emigration Clearance Required (ECR) category (those who have not completed high school) irrespective of the nature/category of employment, an Indian embassy press statement said here. Many Indian women work as domestic helps abroad, especially in the Gulf region. The new rule has also stipulated that employment contracts should be directly between the worker and the employer and not with the recruiting agent. Also, a pre-paid mobile facility is to be provided by the employer to every household service worker to enable them to contact authorities in the event of any difficulty, the statement said here. The Indian mission in the UAE has already started implementing the rule from Sunday, it added.