Katrina's Worst Casualty, Crimes in Darfur

General

Woman sues polygamist Mormon sect - AP
A woman on Tuesday sued a fundamentalist Mormon church and its fugitive polygamist leader, claiming he forced her as a young teenager to marry a much oldlder man.

Older Women Were and Are Katrina's Worst Casualty - Women's eNews
While the media did a good job focusing national concern on race and class in Katrina coverage, Margaret Morganroth Gullette decries a failure to focus on the main casualties of the disaster: elderly women.


Reproductive Rights

3 Dallas area clinics for women set to close - AP
As many as 11,000 women in Dallas County could lose access to postpartum care and birth control next year with the closure of three neighborhood clinics, doctors from UT Southwestern Medical Center say. The doctors, who are running the program for Parkland Memorial Hospital, blamed an almost 25 percent cut in federal funding distributed by the state next year - a loss totaling $1.7 million. "Our worst-case scenario was that the state would cut 20 percent of our funding," said Dr. Steve Bloom, UT Southwestern's interim director of obstetrics and gynecology. "It's a sad day for family planning in Dallas."


International

Millions of children ''invisible'': UNICEF - Reuters
Millions of the world's neediest children are not even a blip on the radar of their own governments because there is no record of their birth, the United Nation's Children's Fund UNICEF said on Wednesday. In its annual State of the World's Children report "Excluded and Invisible," UNICEF said one-third of the estimated 150 million children born worldwide each year were not registered -- and the number was growing. Children not registered at birth may never officially exist, making it easy for governments to ignore them and for traffickers to make them disappear without risk of retribution.

South Africa ready to ban 'degrading' virginity tests - Times Online
South Africa prides itself on being the continent’s most advanced nation, but again is about to outrage its many outspoken traditionalists by voting in parliament to ban the "degrading and demeaning" Zulu custom of virginity testing on girls aged under 16. Traditionalists vowed to continue the practice on girls, which involves inspection of genitalia, usually on the sidelines of big cultural festivals. Parliament, which outraged traditionalists when it voted in favour of same-sex marriages this month, is to debate a Children's Bill this week which would ban the practice for girls under 16. Consent must be given for girls over 16. The bill, drawn up to protect children from abuse, has already been diluted because of objections by traditional leaders.

Three times as many women as men died in tsunami: report - AFP
Three times as many women as men died in the vast tsunami that struck about a dozen Asian countries just after Christmas last year, a report by the Global Fund for Women said.

Cuba 'bars women from prize trip' - BBC
Cuban women activists say they are being stopped from going to Europe to collect a human rights prize.

U.N. Prosecutor Gathering Evidence of Darfur Crimes - AllAfrica.com
Evidence gathered by investigators for the International Criminal Court (ICC) presents a picture of "particularly grave events involving high numbers of killings, mass rapes and other forms of extremely serious gender violence" in the Darfur region of Sudan that shows someone commanded and controlled the operations, the court's chief prosecutor says.

War is over but Ivorians are still paying the price - Guardian
A plank studded with rusty nails lies across the road as the Medecins sans Frontieres car enters rebel territory after passing a UN checkpoint. Two young men in fatigues step out of the shade as we stop in front of this makeshift roadblock. Each gestures, using both hands as if to pull a bag over his head. After repeating this baffling movement several times, one comes up to the car window and says in French: "Give us condoms." The mime is explained, but I am surprised by the demand. "It happens all the time," says the MSF nurse sitting behind me. She politely tells the soldiers they can go to any MSF clinic for condoms. It is MSF policy never to give anything out at roadblocks.