No cause for celebration

A note in the calendar is not enough to address the injustices, rapes and murders that seem to be swept under a carpet of tradition, but voices against these crimes are getting louder, James Langton writes.

Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai, third from left, with five Chibok schoolgirls – Rebecca Ishaku, Kanna Bitrus, Hauwa John, Hauwa Musa and Hawa Alhl’ama – who were released by Boko Haram Show more

While today marks International Women’s Day, there is hardly cause for celebration.

Indeed, in many parts of the world this is not a good time to be a woman.

There are the depredations of ISIL, which degrades women in a perverted interpretation of Islam that includes subjugating females of the Yazidi faith into sexual slavery.

In Turkey, the rape and murder of a young student, Ozgecan Aslan, has revealed a culture of violence towards women that included 300 killings last year and 26 this January alone. Aslan’s killer, a minibus driver, cut off her hands and burnt the corpse to conceal her identity.

In Oxford, England, an official investigation has revealed a culture of men raping and sexually abusing very young girls, while police and social workers chose to turn a blind eye for 15 years.

Last week, the Indian government called for the ban of a BBC television documentary about the gang rape of a 23-year-old student, who later died from internal injuries, on the grounds that it had not been consulted.

The film, India’s Daughter, included an interview with one of the rapists, now under sentence of death, who remarked that: “A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy.”

These photographs offer at least the other side of the same coin. When the town of Kobane was liberated from ISIL in late January, the victorious forces included Kurdish women soldiers.

As in India, the rape and murder of Aslan has forced the issue of violence against women to the front of public debate in Turkey. It may be slight comfort, but the rise in cases may be in part because women are now finding the strength to come forward and report them.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistan schoolgirl shot by the Taliban in 2012 for championing the right of girls to be educated, continues to speak her mind. The joint winner of the Nobel peace prize is calling for greater efforts to free 276 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram.

Malala is 17. This year’s Emirates Festival of Literature welcomes Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian feminist writer, activist and opponent of female genital mutilation, a procedure inflicted on her as a young girl. Now 83, El Saadawi’s determination to fight for women remains undimmed.