Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/30780
global I SHORT TAKES ITALY Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-plagued, right-wing media czar, faced trial in April, charged with paying prostituted young women—one a teenag- er—for sex. Feminist rage has ignited the country. An “Enough already!” petition signed by more than 73,000 people pre- ceded mass demonstrations in more than 230 cities nationwide. Across Italy, thou- sands of protesters gathered in the streets bearing signs reading “We Want a Country That Respects Women” and marching to loudspeakers blaring Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Italian women are also furious that Berlusconi’s newspaper and TV empire depicts women only as the worst stereotypes (Berlusconi has even appointed showgirls to political office). Decades after Italian femi- nists won rights to legal abortion and divorce, the 2010 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index ranked Italy 74th among 134 countries (the higher the number, the less gender parity). JAPAN Since the triple disaster—earthquake, tsunami and nuclear- plant leakage—women and children have, as usual, been especially affected. As Ms. goes to press, pregnant women, fearing harm to their fetuses from radioactive water and plutonium-contaminated soil found outside the Fukushima nuclear complex, are fleeing. More than 150 women trav- eled more than 450 miles to check into Osaka hospitals— so many that Osaka is turning public buildings into tempo- rary maternity wards. Dozens of women have also fled Tokyo, 150 miles south of Fukushima, after high levels of radioactive iodine were discovered in the city’s water. Studies show that in disasters, women comprise 75 percent of the displaced and are burdened by reproductive/sexual- health problems, increased sexual and domestic violence, and being primary caretakers for those affected. AFGHANISTAN A proposed draft regulation on Women’s Protection Centers would place existing shelters under government control. A majority of the shelters are currently run by nongovernmental organizations or the United Nations. Hussan Ghazanfar, acting minister of women’s affairs, defends the takeover, claiming shelters are overfunded and corrupt. But Manizha Naderi of Women for Afghan www.msmagazine.com Women, which runs four shelters, rebuts, “That’s a total lie.” Human Rights Watch Afghanistan researcher Rachel Reid says, “The government is increasingly domi- nated by hardline conservatives who are hostile to the very idea of shelters, since they allow women some auton- omy from abusive husbands and family members.” Government shelters are likelier to submit to family and tribal pressure to return victims. The draft regulation states that a shelter seeker can be evicted if she is “accept- ed into the home of her family or another relative” or if she gets married (with or without her consent). The reg- ulation would also forbid women from leaving a shelter compound, require forced forensic examinations and result in the outright closing of many shelters. 5 Italian women demonstrate against Berlusconi. MEXICO A national backlash has been mounted against Mexico City’s 2007 legalization of first-trimester abortion. Though the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2008, 17 states that already outlaw abortion passed constitutional amendments declaring conception the beginning of life. In Guadalajara, the second-largest city in Mexico, doctors at public hospitals are seeking court protection for disobeying a federal policy permitting use of the morning-after pill. In Guanajuato and Veracruz, 16 women who had abortions, miscarriages or stillbirths have been serving prison sentences for “homi- cide.” Once their cases were publicized, some were released on appeal, but not absolved. n SOURCES: The New York Times, Inter Press Service, 2010 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index, Japan Today (English edition), Human Rights Watch. SPRING 2011 | 25 ALESSANDRO BIANCHI /REUTERS