All posts tagged: sexual assault

‘The Look of Shame’ | Beatrice Loayza

‘The Look of Shame’ | Beatrice Loayza

Published by skeptic

The French filmmaker Catherine Breillat was in her mid-twenties when she met Roberto Rossellini. She had already published four novels and played a small role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972); now she was about to direct her first film, A Real Young Girl (1976). In a 2022 interview with the critic Murielle Joudet, she recalled having a tense conversation with the Italian filmmaker on the day before shooting began. When she boasted about her skill as a director, Rossellini challenged her. “What else can you bring to the depiction of young girls that men haven’t already captured?” he asked. “The look of shame,” she answered. “Because it’s you who gave us shame, and we are the ones who carry it.” Shame is ubiquitous in Breillat’s work; her women often seem to actively court it. Alice (Charlotte Alexandra), the teenage protagonist of A Real Young Girl, staves off boredom with self-degrading fantasies: she imagines the local dreamboat tying her up spread-eagle with chicken wire and placing the severed bits of an earthworm in …

Indian doctors call nationwide strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic | Protests News

Indian doctors call nationwide strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic | Protests News

Published by Sam

Hospitals to suspend non-essential services and medical procedures on Saturday as public fury over brutal attack grows. Indian doctors have called for a nationwide shutdown of hospital services as public fury over the rape and murder of a trainee medic in the eastern city of Kolkata last week mounts. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest grouping of medics with 400,000 members, said the 24-hour shutdown would be implemented on Saturday, affecting most hospital departments except for essential services. The shutdown comes after thousands of people took to the streets in several cities to express their outrage at the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor, whose brutalised body was found on August 9 at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. On Friday, large protests were held in various cities – including Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, Mumbai in the west and Hyderabad in southern India – demanding justice and better security at medical campuses and hospitals. “We want justice,” doctors chanted in Kolkata, waving handwritten signs that read, …

Natalie Elphicke forced to issue apology just one day after crossing floor | Politics | News

Natalie Elphicke forced to issue apology just one day after crossing floor | Politics | News

Published by skeptic

Labour’s newest MP Natalie Elphicke has been forced to apologise for the role she played in defending her ex husband both during and after he was imprisoned for sexual assault. The Tory defector defended her ex-MP husband, Charlie, after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women and jailed for two years. Ms Elphicke argued he had merely been “attractive, and attracted to, women” and that made him “an easy target for dirty politics and false allegations”. She claimed he had been the victim of a “terrible miscarriage of justice”. She was then temporarily suspended from the Commons and told to apologise in 2021 for being found to have tried to influence a judge presiding over Mr Elphicke’s trial. In a statement this afternoon, Ms Elphicke said she is sorry for her comments and blamed her actions from 2017 to 2020 on stress. She has said: “My decision to join the Labour Party is not one I have taken lightly but one I made because I am convinced that this country needs a new …

Tory Natalie Elphicke’s defection sparks backlash from Labour women – POLITICO

Tory Natalie Elphicke’s defection sparks backlash from Labour women – POLITICO

Published by skeptic

Elphicke took over the seat from her former husband, Charlie, a Conservative MP who was convicted in 2020 of three counts of sexual assault and sent to prison. In an op-ed after his conviction, Natalie Elphicke wrote that he had been punished for being “charming, wealthy, charismatic and successful — attractive, and attracted to, women. All things that in today’s climate made him an easy target for dirty politics and false allegations.” She was also briefly suspended from the House of Commons in 2021 for improperly trying to influence a judge not to disclose character statements written for Elphicke in his trial. Natalie Elphicke apologized and said she had been wrong to question the process. UK NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls. Elphicke announced her defection to Labour Wednesday, saying: “Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division.” But a shadow minister said there was “a lot of unease” because “Natalie has said some abhorrent things and I’m …

I Was Sexually Assaulted Today — Again | Lisa S. Lawless

I Was Sexually Assaulted Today — Again | Lisa S. Lawless

Published by skeptic

In a time when topics like rape culture, sexual assault, and sexually inappropriate behavior are so prevalent in the media — it is no surprise that I was just sexually assaulted. Again. A man called my company over the weekend while our business was closed. He kept calling our office number over and over, so I decided to answer his call as I happened to be working in the office this weekend. After all, it is not uncommon for me to work seven days a week as a woman who owns her own business. I am someone who is quite educated in the areas of rape, sexual abuse, and assault through my training as a mental health therapist. I used to be a Rape Crisis Counselor who not only counseled and helped rape victims but also lectured about rape, sexual abuse, and assault. I have also counseled sexually abused adolescent girls in a group home and helped them as they dealt with the violation, anger, and grief they experienced. I also have vast experience in self-defense training through martial arts, shooting guns, and basic preventative …

UN denounces ‘onslaught of violence against women’ by Israel, notes mass graves in Gaza – POLITICO

UN denounces ‘onslaught of violence against women’ by Israel, notes mass graves in Gaza – POLITICO

Published by skeptic

The statement notes that of the 34,488 Palestinians killed since the start of the war seven months ago, 14,500 have been children and 9,500 women. Israel disputes the number of dead as it is compiled by local health authorities run by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government. The statement says reports continue of sexual assault and violence against women and girls detained by Israeli forces, but provides no further details. It cites U.N. reports that “a number of” women and girls have been “forcefully disappeared” since the start of the war. The authors also say miscarriages have increased; that 17,000 children have been orphaned since the start of the war; and that Israeli forces have destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, which is reported to have been storing 3,000 embryos. “Israel must cease all hostilities and States must end the export of all weapons immediately. These States can no longer ignore the fact that the weapons are being used to kill and maim innocent women and children. There can be no more excuses,” the statement concludes. Israel’s foreign press …

New Hampshire Moves to Tighten Rules on Name Changes for Violent Felons

New Hampshire Moves to Tighten Rules on Name Changes for Violent Felons

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — For years, sisters Jennifer McCulloch and Erica Duncan plugged the name James Covington into an online inmate database to confirm that their mother’s killer remained incarcerated. When a routine search last May yielded no results, they panicked. And even after confirming he was still behind bars, their fears took on a new shape: His new name. Unbeknownst to the sisters, Covington had changed his first name six months earlier to Jamauri, telling a judge he had worked hard to correct his wrongdoings and was seeking a “fresh start” decades after he strangled his ex-girlfriend Debra Duncan and left her body in a cemetery. Another judge later reversed the change, but Covington is now trying to rename himself Jamauri Abdul Haleem. While that petition is pending, lawmakers have taken up the issue with legislation that would make it harder for some convicted felons to change their names. “It’s so important for victims’ families to be notified of potential changes in the status of an offender so that we will be able to …

French parliament agrees to investigate sexual abuse in cinema

French parliament agrees to investigate sexual abuse in cinema

Published by Sam

The French parliament on Thursday agreed to create a commission of inquiry to investigate sexual and gender-based violence in cinema and other cultural sectors after several recent allegations. Issued on: 02/05/2024 – 11:49 1 min The National Assembly, or lower house, unanimously agreed to set up the commission demanded by actor Judith Godreche in a speech to the upper house, the Senate, in February. The 52-year-old actor and director has become a key figure in France’s MeToo movement since accusing directors Benoit Jacquot and Jacques Doillon of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. Both have denied the allegations. All 52 lawmakers present for the vote approved the creation of the commission, watched by Godreche, who was present in the public gallery in the chamber. “It’s time to stop laying out the red carpet for abusers,” said Greens lawmaker Francesca Pasquini. The new commission is to look into “the condition of minors in the various sectors of cinema, television, theatre, fashion and advertising”, as well as that of adults working in them, it said. …

Harvey Weinstein in court after NY convictions quashed

Harvey Weinstein in court after NY convictions quashed

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#MeToo Bombshell allegations broke against the Oscar-winning producer in 2017, launching the #MeToo movement that saw more women fighting back against sexual violence and discrimination in the workplace. The decision to quash the New York convictions rested on the fact the judge allowed prosecutors to rely on so-called “Molineux witnesses,” who were allowed to testify despite not being part of the charges – an exception to the normal rules surrounding evidence. Lawyers said Weinstein’s Los Angeles conviction was unlikely to be affected by the New York reversal, and he is now set to be transferred to a California prison. Weinstein’s legal team has indicated it now intends to appeal the California conviction. Following his conviction in New York, a civil trial awarded US$17 million to dozens of other women who had accused the former movie magnate of abuse. Weinstein and his brother Bob co-founded Miramax Films, a distribution company named after their mother Miriam and father Max, in 1979. It was sold to Disney in 1993. Their hits included 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, for which …

South Asian groups work to break cultural, religious stigmas around domestic violence

South Asian groups work to break cultural, religious stigmas around domestic violence

Published by Sam

(RNS) — In a survey of nearly 500 South Asian immigrants in the U.S., nearly half (48%) reported experiencing physical domestic violence in their lifetime, according to a 2021 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and cited by survivor advocacy organization South Asian SOAR. And physical violence is only one form of abuse South Asian immigrants, both men and women, report experiencing at home. Nearly four in 10 say they have experienced emotional abuse (38%), more than one-third report economic abuse (35%). Other commonly reported forms of domestic abuse include verbal (27%), immigration-related (26%), in-laws related (19%), and sex abuse (11%). Bringing attention to the pervasive issue of domestic abuse within the South Asian diaspora has been the focus of an increasing number of survivor advocacy organizations, with many of them founded and run by South Asians, who argue the cultural context is important for understanding, addressing and preventing domestic abuse. Ultimately, they believe ending intimate partner violence in the South Asian diaspora must happen from within. “When I hear about other women’s …