Violence & Silence

I Was Here (United Nations World Humanitarian Day Perform...

I wanna leave my footprints on the sands of time
Know there was something that, and something that I left behind
When I leave this world, I'll leave no regrets
Leave something to remember, so they won't forget

I was here...
I lived, I loved
I was here...
I did, I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here...

I want to say I lived each day, until I died
I know that I had something in, somebody's life
The hearts I have touched, will be the proof that I leave
That I made a difference, and this world will see

I was here...
I lived, I loved
I was here...
I did, I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here...

I was here...
I lived, I loved
I was here...
I did, I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here...

I just want them to know
That I gave my all, did my best
Brought someone to hapiness
Left this world a little better just because...

I was here...

I was here...
I lived, I loved
I was here...
I did, I've done, everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here...

Tahrir Women Wall of Fame!

Samira Ibrahim

This is the upper-Egypt girl, coming from Sohag, who has participated in the revolution since day 1. During the violent military attack on March 9^th, Samira, together with 16 girls, were subjected to an illegal “Virginity Test” forced into them by army soldiers after being tortured and beaten up!

Samira is not shutting up, and she is raising charges against the army, even if it takes her life to get her right!

Ghada Kamal

A pharmaceutical from Mansoura, member of April 6^th movement, and member of Supporting Al Baradie group.

She was attacked by the army soldiers on December 16^th morning, her veil was taken off, and the letter “T” was carved into her skull.

She gave her full testimony about her horrible experience of being detained by any army sergeant who kept threatening of sexually abusing her!

It’s worth mentioning here that there was some confusion regarding Ghada being the girl who was stripped off. But that is not the case, yes, there are so many cases not just one!

Farida Elhessy

A medical graduate who works as a photographer and who went to Kasr El Einy street Friday, December 16^th morning to reply to a call for doctors to help casualties.

Farida was beaten up by the army, kicked on the back, and pulled from her hair.

The Old Woman

According to Mona Seif, this woman was not part of the protest, but she joined just to save a girl from being beaten up by the army, only to be beaten up herself and slapped till she apologized!

Tahrir Lady:

She is the woman every piece of **** thought he could talk about her.

She is the woman who was wearing face-veil “Nekab” when she was dragged on the street, kicked on the chest, pulled from the head, and finally stripped off till her underwear was revealed to suddenly realize she was a woman, then they left her for the other protestors to help her.

Right now, according to her friend on Twitter, she is suffering several bone fractures, skull fracture, bruises all over her body, and of course, she suffers psychologically and emotionally not only from the army violence but from how easy it was for everyone to varnish her reputation and question her morals and honor.

---

      As an Egyptian woman, I cannot help but being so proud of these women.

Not just cause they faced all this horrible violence fearlessly, but because they amazingly made everyone look into one of our major societal problems, that I personally believe the core of so many disturbances we suffer here.

Violence against women!

In a society that thinks violence against women OK, army soldiers cannot be different. To them, violence is a language , a method of communication, and a tool by which they enforce and assure power.

I can beat you up, hence I can control you!

Men to women, fathers to daughters, police officers to citizens, and finally army soldiers to protestors.

Some think that focusing on what happened to women is a narrow-minded look into the events, cause all Egyptians have been subjected to all sorts of violence and abuse from authorities, not only this year, but for decades.

I say yes, that is – unfortunately – true. But it is when you highlight the fact that women – perceived as the weaker gender – and children for that matter, should not be under violence from someone who is stronger, that the whole concept of violence will be looked at differently.

I remember my fiancé when we were discussing kids playing sports like Karate and Taekwondo, he told me that it is when you know you can actually kill someone that you learn how to control it, and not to brag about it.

You already know you can do it, you have nothing to prove!

Hence it starts to become shameful to attack someone who is weaker than you. It would not be a fair game.

I think we need to dig deeper into this culture of  “what is power”  in order to finally reach a day when no one beats up another human just because he can!

Domestic Violence 101

Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence (IPV), has been broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, friends or cohabitation. Domestic violence, so defined, has many forms, including physical aggression (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects), or threats thereof; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation. Alcohol, or drug consumption and mental illness can be co-morbid with abuse, and present additional challenges when present alongside patterns of abuse.

Awareness, perception, definition and documentation of domestic violence differs widely from country to country, and from era to era. According to some studies, less than 1 percent of domestic violence cases are reported to the police. According to the Centers for Disease Control, domestic violence is a serious, preventable public health problem. 

Again, Domestic Violence is not only physical! It is:

·       Physical

·       Sexual

·       Emotional

·       Verbal

·       Economic

Sometimes violence that is not physical could be much harder and with deeper impact on human soul. Each category will be discussed in details later.

See you later folks, with the special October awareness campaign for Domestic Violence Against Women!

Sources: Domestic Violence on Wikipedia 

Hello October ... again!

October is the month dedicated from the United Nation to raise awareness to Domestic Violence Against Women. Follow me on my blogs, social media accounts, etc. I will share info, videos, data, numbers, life stories, and more! Please help and share to spread the word. You may not believe this, but a word can do a lot!

Not doing anything is actually "doing" nothing!

Through more than one discussion about what has been happening in Egypt since Jan 25^th and what citizen political participation is, together with my own fight all over to stand against violence of all sorts, I came across a lot of people who think that minding their own business is a good thing to do, that they are not meddling in something they don’t get, and in turn actually helping.

Earlier when I was talking in the “Sinister Spinster” blog about divorcees and single women in general and what they suffer, a lot came across me and told me “why do you care?” “you know nothing about that” and “it is not our business to speak about other women and how they are treated” or my favorite “she might actually like to be abused, why are you so sure she is in pain?”

And today, with politics almost everywhere, there’s a voice that really believes a true citizen should just shut up, and stop interfering in political matters, in fighting against Military Trials for civilians, or Emergency Law. Why? Because “we might not know everything”

Problem with that is that it not only puts no responsibility what so ever on the citizen when it comes to how his country is being run, but also gives everything wrong to just have a bigger chance and a more deeper impact.

See, when injustice happens near you, and you choose not to do anything, you in fact are doing something! You are allowing more injustice to pass by with no resistance, you allow more corrupt people to have bigger chances of poisoning all our lives, and you are forgetting that no matter how hard it is for you to believe, but there’s a very high possibility, next time, the victim will be you!

When your colleague is being bullied, don’t watch passively, do something!

When your neighbor is being hit by her husband, don’t listen silently, do something!

When your co-worker is fired for discriminative reasons, don’t ignore, do something!

When the woman next to you in the subway gets harassed, don’t stand right there, do something!

When your fellow citizens are put in military prisons, don’t shut up, say something!

When Emergency law is being forced in your country, don’t do nothing, you HAVE TO do something!

I won’t claim I know, or I should tell you what it is that you should do. Each one of us knows exactly what he is capable of, what the risks he can take are, and what the prices he can pay are.
What I know is that each one of us HAS TO have to a stance against all sorts of injustice in this world.

Be positive, take initiative, pick a cause, have a fight… show the world what it is like to have you… imprint your soul!

Just be!

Children see ... Children do!

Do nothing, and you might as well lend a hand-

Be a change maker, take a stance against Violence on Facebook

Facebook says that hate speech and incitements to violence are banned and will be removed from their site. So why are they maintaining a page called "Riding Your Girlfriend Softly Cause You Don't Want to Wake Her Up"? And another page about "throwing bricks at sluts" that includes a photo gallery of portraits asking "Bang or Brick"?

There has even been an organized effort to use Facebook’s own reporting system to flag these and other pages that encourage rape and violence against women so they’ll be taken down. But Facebook hasn’t done a thing.

Now, Change.org member John Raines is going straight to the top. He started a petition on Change.org telling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to take down these pages and take a stronger stand against violence against women.

Will you sign John’s petition to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg? Sign on, and tell Facebook to remove pages promoting rape and violence against women now.

When 1 in 3 women will be sexually abused and/or assaulted in her lifetime, pages like these -- and the reactions they elicit -- are downright scary. Tens of thousands of people have "liked" these pages. Some people even use them as platforms to share rape fantasies and receive explicit tactics for how to carry them out.

John has seen the devastating impact of sexual violence and rape firsthand, on his own family. That's why he created this petition on Change.org to get Facebook to enforce its existing policies and to make it clear that content promoting rape and violence against women violates Facebook's Terms of Service and won't be tolerated.

Please sign John's petition. Tell Facebook to stop providing a platform to promote rape and violence against women.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

- Shelby and the Change.org team

Numbers Talk:

GLOBAL VILLAGE

How will violence against women look in a scaled down world, in a global village of 1,000 people? (the figures are based on statistics from UN, WHO and governmental and non-governmental organizations)

·         500 are women

·         It would be 510, but 10 were never born due to gender-selective abortion or died in infancy due to neglect

·         300 are Asian women

·         167 of the women will be beaten or in some other way exposed to violence during their lifetime

·         100 of the women will be victims of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime

WOMEN AND POPULATION

·         49.7% of the world population are women (3,132,342,000 women; 3,169,122,000 men) (UN Population Division).

·         At least 60 million girls who would otherwise be expected to be alive are "missing" from various populations as a result of sex-selective abortions or inadequate care as they are seen less important than boys (E, Joni Seager, 2003).

VIOLENCE IN THE FAMILY

Violence within the family takes different forms  

1-   physical aggression, such as slapping, hitting, kicking and beating  

2-   psychological abuse, such as intimidation, constant belittling and humiliation, including various controlling behaviors, such as isolating a person from their family and friends, monitoring and restricting their movements, access to information or assistance.

Around the world

·         At least one in every three women, or up to one billion women, have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her (L Heise, M Ellsberg, M Gottemoeller, 1999).

·         Up to 47% of women report that their first sexual intercourse was forced (WHO 2002).

·         Up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners (WHO 2002).

·         In Kenya more than one woman a week was reportedly killed by her male partner (Joni Seager, 2003).

·         In Zambia five women a week were murdered by a male partner or family member (Joni Seager 2003).

·         In Egypt 35% of women reported being beaten by their husband at some point in their marriage (UNICEF 2000).

·         In Bolivia 17% of all women aged 20 years and over have experienced physical violence in the previous 12 months (WHO 2002).

·         In Canada the costs of violence against the family amount to $1.6 billion per year, including medical care and lost productivity (UNICEF 2000).

·         In the USA a woman is battered, usually by her husband/partner, every 15 seconds (UN Study on the World’s Women, 2000).

·         In Bangladesh 50% of all murders are of women by their partners (Joni Seager, 2003).

·         In New Zealand 20% of women reported being hit or physically abused by a male partner (UNICEF 2000).

·         In Pakistan 42% of women accept violence as part of their fate; 33% feel too helpless to stand up to it; 19% protested and 4% took action against it (Government study in Punjab 2001).

·         In the Russian Federation 36,000 women are beaten on a daily basis by their husband or partner, according to Russian non-governmental organizations (OMCT 2003).

·         In Spain one woman every five days was killed by her male partner in 2000 (Joni Seager, The Atlas of Women).

·         About two women per week are killed by their partners in the United Kingdom (Joni Seager, 2003).

Violence against women is violence against humanity, against the continuity of this life.

Violence against women is violence against the essence of this world

We’ve been living in a male-dominant world for ages, and look what they have been doing … live, and let the women live… I assure you, it will be an amazing place to live in!

Source: Making Violence against Women Count, Facts and Figures - a Summary

One in Four!

One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. What will you do to help?

International Women's Day ... for all Egyptians!

Hello everyone, every woman, every man, every Egyptian.

As you may already know, today is the international Women’s Day which is a very special day for me. It’s when all women all over the world try to highlight the main issues from which we suffer. And also point out the specific ones.

I have been fighting domestic violence against women for long time now and I still am, but I find it hard to talk it about at the same time all Egyptians were hit, kicked, ran over, and shot by police. The same time we are being attacked by thugs now, and at the same time we are electrified by the militants every now and then!

Today I will not be an Egyptian women, today I’m an Egyptian.

And as I have been saying for so many times;

VIOLENCE IS NOT OK AND DOES NOT HAVE AN EXCUSE

I would like to salute all Egyptian women and men who have been fighting police, injustice, corruption, and even their fellow Egyptians who are so immersed in the corruption that they are no longer able to be struck by it!

I chose to look for the bigger picture and just point out my frustration by neglecting women role in the constitution reforming committee, which included only men, as to put aside any battles that will distract us from the main bigger goal … The Revolution.

But I think now is the time to say it loud, stating a constitutional amendment that will prevent women from the possibility of running for presidential elections is not and will not be accepted.

But you know why I am not worried? Because I know that the men who were right beside me from day 1 eventually will not allow it either. Some of them might be reluctant to speak it up, but when the time comes when you have to take a stance, they will not accept it … Am I not right? :)

It's worth adding that I just received now a link to the whole constitution amendments that are to be voted upon, and language speaking it doesn't make the president a man at all. I'll keep on researching about them, and keep you posted!

Happy international women’s day to all Egyptians!

God bless us all, and God bless the revolution!

Everything was Life

Everything was Life is an experimental documentary using animation and live action to explore the practice of female genital mutilation. Ellie is currently working on educational film and animation projects with young people of different ages and backgrounds in the Northeast of England. She is particularly interested in pushing the boundaries of animation and documentary in the exploration of challenging subjects.

http://www.digitalwomensnetwork.org/content/view/61/52/

Female Actors in the Egyptian Islamic Public Sphere -- My own Statement!

Last Thursday, I had the honor of being invited as one of the speakers in the second day of the workshop titled “Female Actors in the Egyptian Islamic Public Sphere: Increasing Significance through Increasing Mediatization?"  organized by the Netherland-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC). The speakers were Ms. Kawthar  the head of the social department in OnIslam, Ms. Dalia Younis, last year ,medical student who is the moderator and spokesperson for her mother Dr-Suzan, the medical professor and Islamic preacher, and myself. I’ll be posting about the whole event in a while. Here’s my opening statement:

Thank you NVIC for the honorable invitation. It’s very special to me to speak on this special day, November 25^th is the international day for elimination of violence against women, such a very interesting coincidence.

It is very special to me to share my experience that has been a journey of self exploration that has been helping me a lot.

During my last year in medicine school which is a training year, and for a whole year after graduation, I was struck by the low standards women put for themselves.

My colleagues had minimal – if any- interest to their grades & performance, compared to the rings they have on their fingers. I found out that the ultimate role of a woman according to them was to get married before being 25, and for that anything was accepted; humiliation, abuse, quitting her career… when I started to talk more about that, I was called “a jealous spinster”

So In late 2007, I started my own blog in Arabic “A Diary of a Sinister Spinster”.

At the beginning, I only wanted to vent away my own anger & frustration, but then I found out that I was not alone thinking like that, and that I have been giving an amazing blessing; “The Voice”

So .. for two years, 2008 & 2009, I expressed my impressions & concerns about the Egyptian community and how single women are being treated. My main debate was even though marriage is a good thing, being single is not the end of the world, and I should not give up what is important for me just to get the marital status.

The biggest challenge when I was interviewed by media, or from the comments, was that I was perceived as “A spinster by choice”. It took me some time to keep on saying that the title of the blog is sarcastic and not expressive of how I see myself.

Most of the comments were supportive & encouraging from anonymous women & aggressive from anonymous men. Of course, I got me a few online proposals J

Then I knew that our main problem is that we don’t bring up our daughters in a way that preserves them any hint of self esteem. The concept of beauty that made facial bleaching creams in a Caucasian country a best seller is a very good example of how we here don’t raise our daughters to believe in themselves, until today I fight with that… girls still think to have dark skin means you’re not beautiful!!

The most controversial debate was when I tried to hit the concept of choice; talking about women living alone or women getting married by themselves (to say their own vows) were topics that I get comments on till today and a lot of them don’t agree.

I share my email all the time and my cell phone sometimes with people who comment, through which I got to know a lot of friends & people that I now know personally.

By the end of 2009, I knew that even though my anger was deeper, it was a stage, and that I had to evolve. So I started a new blog “The Purple Revolution” my own revolution, where the  main focus is young women ranging from 15 to 35, women who are in the beginning of either a relationship or a marriage.

My tools are diverse now, using the Twitter hashtag technique, Facebook netblog services, and the different Google applications are helping me to reach my target audience, and helping them to reach me.  Using codes like VAW or FGM is a very easy way to get in touch with those who have the same interest on the web, and to be always updated regarding these topics.

Let me give you an example; October is the month assigned by the UN to raise awareness of domestic VAW. A very big group of websites owners, bloggers, and activists joined their online forces by posting videos, data, simple straight numerical facts and posts of their own words about that issue. Through dedicating a tag or a label, sharing a banner, and tweeting about all that, the term violence against women was (and still is) widely and constantly spreading through the web.

In Sept 2009, I joined Muslimah Media Watch (MMW), an online English speaking website where Muslim women from around the globe emphasize how media portrays women in general in Muslim dominating countries, and Muslim women in the West. Naturally the audience is a bit different, as an Egyptian and an Arab, most of the topics I talk about are from Saudi Arabia, being the highly controversial and Lebanon, being highly exposed to media. As much as we get positive feedback, I still get comments stating that this categorization though it might help saving the identity but in the mean time it gives marginalization a bigger chance.