12 Dec 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on FGM & women's rights

Articles

How young women in Delhi are fighting street harassment
By Al Jazeera, 11 Dec 2017

 New Delhi, India - When Pooja*, a teenager in New Delhi, was 15, she would walk a roundabout route home from school. That way she could avoid harassment from boys lurking in a shadowy lane nearby. "That corner over there, I wouldn't take that right," she said, pointing at a street near her home in a working-class neighbourhood where residents live cheek by jowl in brick buildings amid webs of electric wires.

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Tackling Sexual Harassment in the Garment Industry
By Human Rights Watch, 11 Dec 2017

 “Whore.... Do you think this is a brothel? You must meet the production demand here. If you want to continue to work here, listen to us.” This nasty threat is a snapshot of the harassment that supervisors and managers heap on many Bangladeshi garment workers. Workers say many factory bosses lash out like this for things as simple as attempting to exercise the right to refuse overtime or take sick leave.In the same factory, one manager pressured multiple garment workers to spend nights with him at a hotel. Sick of his unwanted sexual advances, workers summoned the courage to confront him as a group. He denied it. His managers didn’t respond. But then the women who protested the harassment faced retaliation. Managers made their lives hell—making them work longer hours with higher production targets—and labelled them “unproductive workers.”

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Why Nato must defend women's rights
By The Guardian, 10 Dec 2017

All violence against women betrays the fundamental promise in the UN Charter of equal rights and dignity for women. It is one of the prime reasons why women remain in a subordinate position in relation to men in most parts of the world. When this violence is committed as an act of war it tears apart families, creates mass displacement, and makes peace and reconciliation far harder to achieve. In fact, it is often designed expressly to achieve those goals as part of a military strategy. 

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Google notches a win in gender discrimination lawsuit
By CNN, 06 Dec 2017

 In a win for Google, a California judge has rejected a class action claim against the company for alleged gender inequity. In September, three former female employees filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the company "engaged in systemic and pervasive pay and promotion discrimination."The complaint asserted women were paid less than men, assigned to lower paying jobs, and promoted less often. The plaintiffs sought class action status on behalf of women who have worked at Google in California for the past four years.

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