Tag Archives: Domestic Violence

What’s at stake for women in Turkey’s election

Feminist groups tell of increasingly hostile environment under Erdoğan – but say opposition doesn’t go far enough

By Jessie Williams Published 5-12-2023 by openDemocracy

We Will Stop Femicides group at the Labour Day protests in Istanbul | We Will Stop Femicides

“It will be like the Taliban regime,” says Melek Önder, asked what will happen to women’s rights if Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is re-elected as president of Turkey in the election on Sunday.

Önder is a spokesperson for We Will Stop Femicides (Kadin Cinayetlerini Durduracagiz), one of the most active groups in Turkey’s women’s movement. The platform was founded in 2010 after Cem Garipoğlu, 17, murdered his girlfriend Münevver Karabulut, also 17. It collects data on femicides and campaigns against violence against women.

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‘Death Sentence for Women and Families’: US Court Blocks Domestic Violence Gun Ban

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“There is no real doubt that the 5th Circuit’s decision is going to lead to more abusers murdering their wives and girlfriends,” said one gun control advocate. “It will also increase mass shootings.”

By Brett Wilkins Published 2-2-2023 by Common Dreams

People participate in a March 24, 2018 “March for Our Lives” protest for gun control laws in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (Photo: Peter Cedric Rock Smith/flickr/cc)

The right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday struck down a federal law barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms, a ruling that gun control advocates said will cost lives.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based appellate court said in its decision that the overturned law is an unconstitutional impediment to the right to bear arms. The judges based their ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down that state’s limits on carrying concealed guns in public. Continue reading →

Did the assault weapons ban of 1994 bring down mass shootings? Here’s what the data tells us

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*The Clinton-era ban on assault weapons ushered in a period of fewer mass shooting deaths.*
*AP Photo/Dennis Cook*

Michael J. Klein, New York University

A spate of high-profile mass shootings in the U.S. has sparked calls for Congress to look at imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons – covering the types of guns used in both the recent Buffalo grocery attack and that on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Such a prohibition has been in place before. As President Joe Biden noted in his June 2, 2022, speech addressing gun violence, almost three decades ago bipartisan support in Congress helped push through a federal assault weapons ban in 1994, as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Continue reading →

Turkey funds women’s groups to counter ‘feminist threat’

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Government-operated women’s organisations are drowning out genuine feminist voices in Turkey, my research reveals

By Anna Ehrhart Published 5-20-2022 by openDemocracy

“Kıyafetime karışma” protest in Kadıköy, Istanbul on July 29, 2017. Photo: Neslihan_Turan/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Government-controlled women’s organisations in Turkey are undermining genuine feminist organisations in the country, according to research I have undertaken over the past three years.

I have been studying how the Turkish leadership under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan strategically uses women’s organisations that it funds and controls – so-called ‘women-GONGOs’ – in order to mimic and undermine feminist groups. My qualitative research is based on interviews and meetings with more than 20 feminist women’s organisations across Turkey and explores their experiences of the country’s changing civic space. Continue reading →

Wireless Companies Lobby to Weaken Bill That Would Protect Domestic Abuse Survivors From Threats

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A lobbying group for companies including Verizon and T-Mobile is fighting to neuter the Safe Connections Act, which passed in a Senate committee last week.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-6-2021

A lobbying group for the U.S. wireless industry is attempting to weaken legislation to protect victims of intimate partner abuse from tech-based abuse.

Digital rights and anti-domestic violence groups are pushing lawmakers to pass legislation to protect survivors from stalking and harassment, but advocates are facing a powerful lobbying group for the wireless industry, which aims to weaken the bill.

As The Guardian reported Thursday, the Safe Connections Act, introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in January, aims to ensure companies like Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint allow survivors to remove themselves from family cell phone plans and end their wireless contracts in order to stop their abusers from accessing information about them. Continue reading →

‘Tidal Wave of Rage’: 100,000+ Australian Women March Against Sexual Violence

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“Evil thrives in silence,” said survivor and Australian of the Year Grace Tame. “But… it gives me hope because the start of the solution is also quite simple—making noise!”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-15-2021

Women and allies rally in Melbourne, Victoria on March 15, 2021 during Australia’s mutli-day March 4 Justice against sexual violence and gender discrimination. (Photo: Matt Hrkac/Flickr/cc)

Declaring “enough is enough,” over 100,000 Australian women and their allies took to the nation’s streets Sunday and Monday during a nationwide #March4Justice to denounce sexual violence and gender discrimination.

Over 110,000 people in at least 40 cities and towns took part in the demonstrations, according to event organizers. Janine Hendry, the main organizer, told the New York Times that “there are huge numbers of women around the country that have had enough, quite frankly, of their appalling response to sexual assault and harassment.” Continue reading →

Calling for End of ‘Shadow Pandemic,’ Rallies Across Globe to Mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

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“Men’s violence against women is also a pandemic—one that pre-dates the virus and will outlive it.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-25-2020

Activists and policymakers around the world on Wednesday marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and kicked off 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, with advocates holding rallies as global leaders took steps toward fighting what many have called the “shadow pandemic” of violence against women.

The rallies were held as experts reiterated warnings that were first issued when economic shutdowns began in many countries around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic: As many families have been largely confined to their homes this year to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, reports of violence by men against women have skyrocketed. Continue reading →

Police fire on femicide protest in Cancún, Mexico

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The femicide of a 20-year-old girl on the Mexican Caribbean coast adds to a pandemic of bloody murders that do not remit despite popular outrage.

By Danica Jorden. Published 11-16-2020 by

Portrait of Bianca Alejandrina Lorenzana, Alexis | #justiciaparaalexis

“Im afraid to leave the house and never see my mom again.”

— Alexis

The details were sickening and at the same time so familiar. Another young woman missing, raped, murdered and mutilated. This time she was 20 years old and her name was Bianca Alejandrina Lorenzana, known as Alexis, and, until November 7, 2020, she lived in the balmy resort town of Cancún, Mexico. She had dared to leave the house alone one evening to make a little money selling a vape and now she was never coming back. Her body, like those of so many of her sisters, had been cut up and placed in garbage bags. Continue reading →

Central American women fleeing violence experience more trauma after seeking asylum

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File 20190422 1403 n0tfpz.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Laurie C. Heffron, St. Edward’s University

The number of Central American women who make difficult, often harrowing, journeys to the United States to flee domestic and gang violence is rising.

I’m a social science researcher and a social worker who has interviewed hundreds of women after they were detained by immigration authorities for my research about the relationship between violence against women and migration. I find that most female asylum seekers experience trauma, abuse and violence before they cross the U.S. border seeking asylum. Continue reading →

‘Shame on this President:’ With Shutdown, Trump Cuts Off Funds for ‘Vital Services and Protections’ for Women Who Face Abuse

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“This shutdown is directly impacting the safety and lives of women and families across the country.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-24-2018

Photo: Fem 2.0

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was among those condemning the government shutdown’s impacts on the safety of women and families, as funding for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) expired at midnight on Friday as the shutdown went into effect.

Along with nearly 400,000 federal employees who face a furlough thanks to President Donald Trump’s decision to shut down the federal government, programs that support women who have survived violence may now face funding shortages due to the turmoil on Capitol Hill. Congress’s failure to negotiate a spending bill over the weekend left programs that rely on the law without federal funding until at least Thursday, when lawmakers reconvene. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Domestic Violence