Witchy Woman

"An overseas Filipino worker launguishing in a Saudi Arabian jail suffered miscarriage and now fears getting a hundred lashes before finally being freed.

Camille (not her real name) has been in prison since August last year after her employer turned her over to authorities because she got pregnant out of wedlock by a co-worker who raped her.

Camille, who lived with her in Quezon City, went to Dammam on May last year to work as a janitor in a dental clinic on a two-year contract, the victim’s mother told GMANews.TV in an interview.

Three months into the job, a co-worker – a Bangladeshi national – raped her.

But Camille chose to keep quiet, fearing her rapist would kill her if she reports the incident.

In September, after undergoing a medical check-up – a requirement before she decided to return to the Philippines – she discovered she was pregnant and was reported to Saudi authorities by no less than her employer.

However, hard life in Hafr Al-Baten prison caused the miscarriage of her daughter’s four-month-old baby in December, Camille’s mother said.

Although Camille was able to go to the hospital, she was sent to prison immediately after.

The Shari’ah or Islamic law imposes imprisonment for women who get pregnant out of wedlock and, after giving birth, a penalty of lashes to be determined by courts before being freed.

The law applies even to victims who claim to have been raped."

"“A woman in the military is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq,” Representative Jane Harman, a Democrat from California, said at a Congressional hearing this year, repeating an assertion she has made a refrain in a campaign of hers to force the military to do more to address abuses."

"Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. The first thing you need to understand is that women are dealing with a set of challenges and concerns that are strange to you, a man. To begin with, we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted.

“But wait! I don’t want that, either!”

Well, no. But do you think about it all the time? Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is."

"Kabul - More than 1,000 Afghans surrounded a group of 200 protesters who took to Kabul's streets Wednesday to protest a new family law that they said violates women's rights.
As police tried to keep the two groups apart, a man picked up a stone and threw it at a schoolgirl, shouting at her, "You dog of the Westerners, go from here."
At least three people were wounded by police gunshots in western Kabul, witnesses said, when a group of young Shiite men tried to stop schoolgirls who were on their way to join the protest against the Shiite family law that lawmakers passed and President Hamid Karzai signed last month amid national and international criticism.
Critics said the law "legalizes rape within marriage" because some of its articles allow husbands to demand sex from their wives every fourth night unless they are ill or have "lawful or logical excuses." "