Violence against women world wide is on the increase. This latest example from India should alert you to this issue and keep you ever vigilant.
A physiotherapy student, was last night fighting for her life in hospital. She had been travelling home from watching a film at a shopping mall in the south of Delhi when she and a male friend were attacked by a group of drunk men on a largely empty bus.
Police say six men attacked the couple and took turns to rape the woman as the bus toured the city's streets on Sunday. Tinted windows and curtains kept them hidden and prolonged the woman's suffering as the rapists attacked her and her friend with an iron bar before throwing them out of the bus unconscious on a city flyover.[Telegraph]
Sexual abuse and violence against women is spreading in Egypt too.
In the post-Mubarak era, activists and protesters have reported many particularly violent assaults on women. Some experts allege the government and security officials are failing to take the problem seriously. More than 700 claims of harassment were filed across Egypt over the four-day Id al-Adha holiday in late October.
"It is not a country of law, not a state of law anymore. It has given men a chance to harass women without being accused," said Afaf Marie, director of the Egyptian Association for Community Participation and Enhancement, an NGO.
Some activists fear that women's rights will suffer under the rule of President Mohammed Morsi, who is an Islamist. [NBC]
But it is not just in nations run by Islamists that violence against women has increased.
Each day, women and girls are raped, beaten, burned, trafficked and subjected to other forms of horrendous violence. Every nine seconds in the United States a woman is assaulted or beaten. In 2011, at least 34 people died in domestic violence incidents in Minnesota. Now more than ever, attention needs to be focused at all levels on how to reduce and eliminate the occurrence of sexual and domestic assault. No one is immune – the violence crosses all borders and affects women of all ages, social groups, religions and classes. [Fairbault Daily News]
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