TresSugar

Oh Snap! Her Life's Like a Soap Opera

TresSugar — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Afghan actress Trena Amiri films a scene for the soap opera Love and Old Age in Kabul. Trena, who is divorced and rarely sees her three children according to Afghanistan's custody laws, tries to be discreet about her career because many people are critical of her lifestyle.

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Birth Control Rises Among Muslim Women, Don't Tell the Men

TresSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:00:10 -0800

Nothing in Islam forbids birth control, but like Christianity the religion does extol procreation. So as the pill becomes more accessible in Afghanistan - a country with a fertility rate of six children per woman - it's no surprise it's controversial. Now that many women have access to it, they are forced to take it behind their husbands' backs.

Afghanistan is not the only third-world country (or any-world country, really) where women hide birth control. The trend became apparent when a Double X writer traveled through Kenya this Summer and interviewed more than 100 women and 25 medical professionals about contraception use and women's health. One doctor said the number of women asking about contraception, without their husband’s knowledge, has increased from around 100 per year to 100 per month in just a year. Yet, there are still doctors who refuse to prescribe the pill (that happens in the US!), nurses who report its use to husbands, and conspiracy theorists who believe those promoting it are on the "Americans' payroll."

Consider the ramifications of a woman lying to her husband in a Muslim country, and this all sounds like a bittersweet victory. Yet it's not all that different from how the US spent the better part of the 20th century, when, even after the pill became legal in 1960, doctors refused to prescribe it, black nationalists believed it would lead to race suicide, and the women who did take it often did so in secrecy, behind their husbands' backs.

Front Page: Fort Hood Shooting Suspect in Stable Condition

TresSugar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:59:12 -0800

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting, is in stable condition; he was set to be deployed to Afghanistan. - New York Times
Meet Kimberly Munley, the police officer who brought down the gunman. - CNN
Texas polygamist sect leader Raymond Jessop is convicted of sexual assault. - AP
The jobless rate hit 10.2 percent in October, a 26-year high. - Wall Street Journal
Obama signs bill offering tax credit to first-time home buyers. - AP
The Parents Television Council is up in arms about the upcoming threesome episode on Gossip Girl. - PopSugar

According to NGOs, 90 Percent of Afghan Women Are Abused

TresSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0700

This sobering CNN video takes us into one of only a dozen women's shelters in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to nongovernmental agencies, 90 percent of Afghan women are victims of domestic abuse.

One woman is at the shelter trying to escape 15 years of abuse from her husband for not being able to conceive a child. As she speaks, a slash on her throat is visible and highlighted by stitches. She would like to see her family again, but she fears she will be killed if she goes home. Another woman has tried to kill herself three times to escape the abuse of a man who often chained her to a wall, setting her free only when it was time for her to cook. In a country where women are viewed as property, even children aren't spared. A 9-year-old tells her story of being raped at age five.

Manizha Naderi, the director for Women for Afghan Women, risks her life to take them in. Listen to her explain the way that the expectation for how women are treated is handed down from generation to generation. By providing a safe space, Naderi lets them know they have an option.

Front Page: Thousands of Troops Quietly Sent to Afghanistan

TresSugar — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:00:25 -0700

Peace activists are not happy to know that President Obama has quietly sent 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. That's 13,000 more than he said would go in March. - Washington Post
Governor Schwarzenegger has signed tough antipaparazzi legislation into law in California. - AP
Bernie Madoff got in a prison brawl with another senior-citizen inmate. They were fighting about the stock market. - New York Post
The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on a crucial healthcare reform bill today. - AP
Joe Lieberman might help the White House repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell with bipartisan support. Lieberman has opposed the policy since it was introduced in 1993. - The Advocate

Say What? Nancy Pelosi Knows Her Place

TresSugar — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:00:00 -0700

"They really don't understand how inappropriate that is. I'm in my place. I'm the Speaker of the House, the first woman Speaker of the House. And I'm in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there. But that language is something I haven't even heard in decades."

- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stood up for herself yesterday, after the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) said General Stanley McChrystal should "put her in her place" for her views about the war in Afghanistan.

The NRCC subsequently responded to Pelosi's dismissal of its loaded language saying: "She's playing out of her league and she knows it." (Um, wow.) Hopefully the NRCC can go back to disagreeing with the substance of Nancy Pelosi's opinions, instead of criticizing her for having them in the first place.

Private Security Contractors Gone Wild in Afghanistan

TresSugar — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:00:00 -0700

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a letter on Tuesday from Project on Government Oversight (POGO), and I’m sure she didn’t like what she saw. It was reported that private security contractors ArmorGroup North America guarding the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, have been behaving not like professionals responsible for keeping American government workers safe, but like crazed frat boys on a particularly debaucherous Spring break.

What have they been up to? According to the letter, "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drunken brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity."

Apparently, this has been going on under the not-so-watchful eye of supervisors, creating a kind of hazing environment that has caused many incoming guards to leave within a year of arriving. Some guards claimed that they actually had to barricade themselves in their rooms because they were afraid that if they didn’t participate in this depraved bacchanal, they would be physically harmed.

This would be unacceptable behavior coming from adults at a frat house, but not only is ArmorGroup North America funded by taxpayers (to the tune of $189 million a year!), but they're also in charge of safeguarding the lives of hundreds of diplomats and other officials who work in the embassy. A representative for the security contractors testified before Congress and said ArmorGroup has been fully staffed since January 2009, but a POGO rep says that they’re chronically understaffed, overworked, and now that these allegations are out - subject to hazing abuse.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly had this to say about the shocking news and graphic pictures (NSFW): "These are very serious allegations and we are treating them that way," adding that the State Department has "zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in these documents."

POGO

Front Page: Afghan Voters Head to Polls

TresSugar — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:00:14 -0700

Afghan men and women headed to the polls today amid Taliban threats and rocket attacks. - New York Times
On compassionate grounds, Scotland releases the convicted PanAm bomber, who has terminal prostate cancer. - Associated Press
US News & World Report releases its 2010 list of the best colleges in America. - New York Daily News
A Seattle woman is suing magician David Copperfield for sexual assault. - Seattle Times
Teenage South African runner Caster Semenya is undergoing gender testing amid speculation that she is not a woman. - AP

Life For Afghan Women: Not Better Under Karzai

TresSugar — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:45:00 -0700

Women everywhere fight for their rights - but women in Afghanistan have it particularly bad.

BBC reporter Jane Corbin was invited by a French charity, based in Herat, Afghanistan, that treats women who have self-immolated. Most of these women set fire to themselves to escape a forced marriage or a violent husband. In the photo above, a woman comforts her 20-year-old daughter in the hospital. In an attempted suicide to protest a forced marriage to an elderly man and escape rumors of an affair with a younger one, she set fire to herself and now suffers from burns over 85 percent of her body.

Although women were promised equality and human rights by the introduction of democracy, a new constitution, and President Hamid Karzai’s presidency in 2004, the reality of their situation is still bleak.

Sixty percent of women are still forced into marriage as children, sometimes as young as nine or 10. Since Westerners intervened, this was supposed to have changed under a law that stated girls under 16 should not be married. But police don't always investigate the crimes, and male judges often reduce the sentences of men guilty of harming women.

Some women are standing up to the Taliban, which is trying to turn back any minuscule gains women may have from new leadership. Prosecutor Maria Bashir, who requires security guards and has survived bombing attacks, is trying to protect women from men even though laws are supposed to do this. Bashir does this even though it puts her family in danger - the son of another lawyer was beheaded by people who thought he was her son.

A news story today makes an Afghan woman's plight almost unthinkable: a law has passed that allows a man to starve his wife if she refuses his sexual demands. Some accuse Karzai of allowing this barbaric law to pass so that he can get support from the conservative Shia support in next week’s presidential election.

There is a sliver of hope: there are women activists like Bashir who risk their lives fighting for women’s rights and, in spite of an 80 percent illiteracy rate among Afghan women, girls still dream of going to school and having a career.

Front Page: Afghanistan Prepares For Elections

TresSugar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:00:24 -0700

As crucial elections approach in Afghanistan, the Taliban has escalated its threats and intimidation. - New York Times
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says that it's hard living alone in the governor's mansion now that his wife moved out. - CNN
Financial cheater Bernie Madoff apparently cheated on his wife, too. - Bloomberg
Hoping to beat the recession, JetBlue is offering a $599 one-month pass for unlimited travel to any of its 56 destinations. -SavvySugar
Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, has confessed that the character baby Stewie is gay. - New York Daily News