Violence Against the Defenseless Growing

Is there a war on women and children?  Violence against women and children seems to be increasing, and not just in wars.  Not included here are the  drone attacks by the U.S.,  which also kill women and children.

• Women in Peril: PTC Report Finds Increase in Violence Against Females on Television Maybe this explains part of the growing violence against women in the U.S.: In a new special report, the Parents Television Council found that storylines depicting violence against females are increasing and being shown more graphically and in ways that have not been seen in the history of television. The PTC’s report, Women in Peril: A Look at TV’s Disturbing New Storyline Trend, examined fatal and nonfatal female victimizations on prime time broadcast television and found that there was a significant increase in all forms of female victimization storylines; an increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims; an increase in the use of female victimization as a punch line in comedy series; and an increase in the depiction of intimate partner violence. Read the study here.
• Six UN staff killed and nine wounded in Taliban rocket attack in Peshawar – In a market selling dresses, toys and cheap jewelry, the customers were bound to be mainly mothers and daughters. All the more reason for the heartless fanatics of the Taliban to strike. Of at least 96 people killed by a massive car bomb in the Pakistan city of Peshawar yesterday, two thirds were women and children. ” Is there some world-wide full-attack on women going on? Maybe it’s time for women to run the world for awhile, not be the victims of ongoing male violence.
• Four charged in gang rape of 15-year-old Bay Area student (L.A.Times) – Rape and robbery charges were filed this afternoon against four suspects in the gang rape of a 15-year-old Bay Area student who struggled against her attackers as more than a dozen people passed by but did nothing. The girl was repeatedly raped, beaten and eventually robbed Saturday night at Richmond High School after she left a homecoming dance, according to police. The crime has sparked outrage and focused national attention on Richmond, a city of 104,000 northeast of San Francisco. City of Richmond” What is wrong with people? I once looked at an apartment in Richmond and now I’m glad I didn’t want it.
• Group: Massacre, rapes in Guinea were premeditated – The massacre of at least 150 people and rapes of dozens of women by troops in Guinea last month were premeditated and aimed at terrorizing opponents to military rule, a U.S.-based rights group said Tuesday, adding that the rapes persisted for days.” Maybe something in the air or water contains a chemical that makes people even more violent towards the defenseless. With all the environmental pollution in the world it wouldn’t be too surprising.
• SUDAN: Darfur attack “targeted women and children” NAIROBI, 10 October 2007 (IRIN) – The recent attack on Muhajiriya town in South Darfur, in which 45 people died and thousands fled their homes, mainly targeted women, children and the elderly, a rebel faction said. “The government moved forces into the town two days earlier,” Mohammed Bashir, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said from Khartoum, the capital. “With air cover, they attacked the town, burnt down half of it and killed mainly children, women and the elderly.” According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 45,000 internally displaced people were being assisted in and around Muhajiriya.
• ISRAEL-OPT: Dry water holes versus green gardens. According to a 27 October 2009 report by Amnesty International (AI), Israelis consume more than four times as much water per capita as Palestinians. AI accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of access to adequate water, saying that by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies Israel is violating the rights of the Palestinian population to water. “Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while unlawful Israeli settlements receive virtually unlimited supplies,” Donatella Rovera, AI’s researcher on Israel and OPT, told IRIN. Report here (PDF)