Clare's Law trial to allow violent partner checks

SCOTTISH women will be able to check the past of their partners for the first time as Clare's Law is rolled out in the north-east and south-west of the country.

LEGACY: The law was inspired by the death of Clare Wood.

The pilot schemes will include the part of Aberdeenshire that is home to the family of Clare Wood, the 36-year-old whose death inspired the English initiatives on which they are based.

Ms Wood, a mother-of-one, was beaten to death in 2009 by a boyfriend she met on Facebook. She did not know that he had a long history of violence against women.

Under the pilots, police and other authorities will consider bids to share information about whether a partner - a man or a woman - may be a danger.

Ms Wood's father welcomed the pilots. Michael Brown said: "Anything that gives men and women another layer of protection from a potentially abusive partner has got to be welcome.

"I thought it was an absolute disgrace that my daughter could not be told about her partner's past. It then choked me to my core to learn that somewhere between 100 and 120 girls every year die in the same way as my daughter.

"For every one of those victims, there are at least two people - a mother and a father - who are suffering. And that is just for starters. The death is just the start, like a stone going into a pond. The suffering goes on and on."

Mr Brown, a retired prison officer originally from Aberdeen but now living in Yorkshire, has been campaigning for Clare's Laws north and south of the Border ever since his daughter was killed by George Appleton in Manchester.

Those seeking information will be checked out - to rule out the merely curious - and a final ­decision will be made by a multi-agency panel including police, prosecutors and advocacy groups, such as Assist and ­Scottish Women's Aid.

The pilot programmes will begin in November and run for six months, after which they will be assessed. Champions of such schemes believe they have worked well in England.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, backing the pilots, said: "It is only right that people in relationships should have the opportunity to seek the facts about their partner's background if, for example, they suspect their partner has a history of violent behaviour."

Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson said: "I find it extremely encouraging that more and more victims of domestic abuse have the strength and confidence to report domestic abuse, however we are not complacent.

"I believe the introduction of the Disclosure Scheme for Domestic Abuse Scotland will not only provide a mechanism to share relevant information about a partner's abusive past with their potential victims, it will give people at risk of domestic abuse the information to assist in making an informed decision on whether to continue in the relationship."

It is not only partners who will be able to seek disclosures. The scheme will also be open, in theory, to family members and others - all subject to the panel approving disclosure. Mr Mawson said he believed the panel would defend the rights of all those concerned.

Local universities taking action against street harassment

It’s been going on for centuries.  But today women, including those attending the University of Akron and Kent State, are starting to answer back to the catcallers and lewd males who will not allow them to walk down the street in peace just going home after a class.   In many ways these women are saying, “No more.  My name is not ‘Hey, Baby.’”

“Street harassment” is defined as “unwelcome words and actions by unknown persons in public places which is motivated by gender and invades a person’s physical and emotional space in a disrespectful way.”   It has also been defined as “an appearance-related comment or noise made by a stranger in a public place.”

If it were just words, the complaints about “street harassment” would likely be far fewer, but of the 65% of women who report having been harassed in this manner, two thirds report the behavior goes beyond honks, whistles and directives such as “Come over here, Beautiful.”

Harassers sometimes follow those they taunt and become increasingly aggressive.  Many women report fearing the encounter would escalate into rape.   Women have experienced being touched (23%), flashed (14%) or forced to do something sexual (9%), according to the website, thinkprogress.org which reported on the “street harassment” epidemic in June 2014.

Women Report Comments Are Not Received as Compliments

Harassers often perceive their words as “compliments” and don’t see their conduct as wrong.  After all, they are merely telling a woman they think she is attractive.  Not so, say the women who receive the “compliments.”  It’s unfair for men to exert pressure on women to interact with men in a certain way, or to assume women will be receptive to every sexual advance made toward them, the think progress website authors noted.  “It is a damaging culture that disempowers women,” said Holly Kearl, founder of Stop Street Harassment and author of the new report.   She contends “street harassment” is a human rights violation because it connects to broader social issues.

The objection to the “compliments” has very little to do with the words themselves which are spoken to the woman walking by.   It is the expectation behind the words, that a man is somehow entitled to a smile, or some type of positive response, that creates a powerless feeling for the harassed person, Kearl said.

A Type of Sexual Assault

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “non-contact, unwanted sexual experiences” are the most prevalent form of sexual violence in the U.S.   “Street harassment” is viewed by many as a gateway to violence against women and as a type of sexual assault.

In Ohio, a person guilty of “street harassment” can be charged with various crimes depending on how far their actions progress.   The offense can be as simple as disorderly conduct and escalate to menacing by stalking, sexual imposition, indecent exposure and voyeurism.   The offender could also be prosecuted under Ohio’s bullying laws which prohibit harassment, intimidation or bullying.

In the past few years The University of Akron and Kent State University have widened their responsiveness to incidents of sexual assault on their campuses and have each formed a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART).  At Akron U, SART’s goal is “to better coordinate the University’s existing response services to victims of sexual assault and sexual misconduct and to further improve education about, and responsiveness to Title IX issues which have broadened beyond athletics to more directly impact sexual/misconduct/gender equity issues.”

At Kent State, SART is described on its website (www.kent.edu/sart) as a first response team to incidents of sexual violence in the university community.  It ensures protocols are followed when an incident occurs and that services are victim-centered.   It also aims to educate the university community about personal safety and violence prevention and to provide anti-violence programming and support services, and to encourage all community members to speak out when witnessing violence.

Telephone apps are also being developed for women to use when they are walking around campus alone.  Most are designed to alert a number of friends and law enforcement about any dangerous situation.  Some are free and others are nominally priced.

Delhi: Nurse gang-raped in Oberoi Hotel, 2 arrested

Two men allegedly gang-raped a 28-year-old nurse in south Delhi’s Oberoi hotel on Friday, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during his Independence Day address that the nation had been shamed by a spate of recent rapes.

The nurse – employed with a prominent private hospital in Delhi – had been coming to the luxury hotel for the past two months to take care of the hotel owner’s 80-year-old wife, police said on Monday. Both the accused -- identified as Neeraj (25) and Rajan (20) -- have been arrested.

"On Friday, the victim was on duty at the suite where the owner’s wife has been staying for four years. The accused forcibly took her to their room and gangraped her," a senior officer said.

The five-star hotel contracted the hospital four years ago for providing medical attention to the owner’s wife, an officer said. One of the accused was the ailing woman’s personal cook, police sources added.

"The incident is very unfortunate. The individuals in question are not hotel employees. We are fully cooperating with the police and local authorities with the investigation," said a press statement from the hotel management, rejecting the police’s claim that the accused were hotel employees.

In her complaint, the nurse – who hails from Tibet -- said the two accused had sexually assaulted her once before Friday’s rape but she had kept silent since the accused had threatened to kill her. However, after a failed sexual assault bid by the same men on Sunday night, she broke down in front of her husband, who called the police. 

Following the complaint, senior Delhi Police officers approached the couple and brought them to the Hazrat Nizamuddin police station where a case was registered.

On Independence Day, PM Modi had spoken out against increasing rapes, saying the Indian society must raise sons in the best possible manner to curb violence against women. "After all, a person who is raping is somebody's son. As parents, we need to take responsibility to bring our sons who have deviated from the right path to bring them back," Modi had said.

White Ribbon night to empower women

GET INVOLVED: White Ribbon Day fundraiser organiser Carlie White (left) and friend Stacy Wilesmith encourage victims of domestic violence to form relationships with other women to feel supported and empowered.

OVER 12 months one woman on average is killed every week as a result of intimate partner violence.

Milton-Ulladulla residents can help raise awareness of domestic violence by taking part in the region’s first White Ribbon Day fundraiser at the Dunn Lewis Centre in November.

Organiser Carlie White is calling for local businesses and community groups to become involved with the event she hopes will inspire and empower women.

As well as encouraging women to speak up about domestic violence, she will also be urging men to sign a pledge to help end violence against women.

Carlie hopes to make contact with any groups or organisations that want to hold a stall, run a workshop or provide entertainment during the November 25 fundraiser.

She is also collecting prizes for raffles and auctions to be held on the night, with funds raised going toward women and children who have been victims of violence.

“It is the first fundraiser of its type in Ulladulla and I hope it will become an annual event,” she said.

“I would like to have people involved that want to empower and support women as well as services that can help women break free from domestic violence.

“Whether we realise it or not, we all know someone going through, or who has been through, domestic violence.”

See your ad here

White Ribbon Australia observes the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women, also known as White Ribbon Day, annually on November 25, signalling the start of the 16 Days of Activism to Stop Violence against Women, culminating in Human Rights Day on December 10.

Carlie said domestic violence did not just affect women and children, but also men and the wider community.

She said while rural areas had some services, many did not have enough.

“A good support network is important, from counsellors through to friends,” she said.

Carlie said party plan businesses had empowered women to take control of their lives since the end of World War II.

“I have my own party plan business and enjoy empowering women with the products I sell,” she said.

“Meeting friends for coffee and doing exercise are great ways for women to feel confident, less withdrawn and provide an outlet for women to speak up about violence.”

Carlie said women needed to feel empowered and to take control of their lives by being with other supportive women.

She said exercise was a great way to reconnect with women and break the isolation.

“As well as business and community groups, it would be great to have sporting groups represented at the fundraising night as I believe exercise can help women in so many ways, by making them feel more confident, strong and connected to other women,” she added.

Playing Politics with Violence Against Women

An ad from Alison Lundergan Grimes knocks Sen. Mitch McConnell for voting “two times against the Violence Against Women Act” — evidence, Grimes concludes, that McConnell has forgotten that “over half the voters in Kentucky are women.”

But McConnell has never opposed the central purpose of the Violence Against Women Act. In fact, he was a cosponsor of the original bill in 1991, and he has twice supported its reauthorization.

McConnell did vote against a massive crime bill that included the VAWA because it also contained a ban on assault weapons. And he more recently voted against reauthorization of VAWA in 2012 and 2013 because he opposed Democratic expansions of the bill that included provisions for same-sex couples and immigrants, and one that would have allowed Native American tribal courts to try non-Native Americans accused of domestic violence on reservations. In both cases, McConnell supported Republican alternatives to those bills that he claimed would have strengthened the Violence Against Women Act.

Throughout her campaign, Grimes has highlighted women’s issues, and her campaign website says that the contrast between her and McConnell on that front “could not be starker.” Drawing that contrast is the aim of this latest ad, the third in a series that features a Kentucky resident sitting beside Grimes and posing a rhetorical question to McConnell. We previously reviewed the first two installments, one on Medicare, the other on jobs.

This latest ad features Ilene Woods from Lynch, Kentucky, asking, “Senator, why did you vote two times against the Violence Against Women Act and against enforcing equal pay for women?”After a pause, Grimes says, “I can never get him to answer this one either. I approve this message because, Senator, you must be forgetting that over half the voters in Kentucky are women, like Ilene.”

The ad’s claim that McConnell voted “against enforcing equal pay for women” relates to votes on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 and the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2012. We’ll get to those, but first we’ll deal with the ad’s main claim about VAWA, a law that seeks to combat crimes and violence against women. McConnell has a complicated history with the law — too complex to summarize in one sound bite in a 30-second ad.

McConnell’s History on VAWA

Back in 1991, McConnell was one of the original cosponsors of the first Violence Against Women Act, which was introduced by then-Sen. Joe Biden. The bill sought to address a comprehensive spectrum of domestic violence issues. According to the Congressional Research Service, it “encourages collaboration among law enforcement, judicial personnel, and public and private service providers to victims of domestic and sexual violence; increases public awareness of domestic violence; addresses the special needs of victims of domestic and sexual violence; … authorizes long-term and transitional housing for victims; … and requires studies and reports on the effectiveness of approaches used for certain grants in combating violence.”

That first bill never progressed to a vote. Biden reintroduced it again in 1993, although McConnell was no longer a cosponsor. The bill was never brought to an independent vote, but that year VAWA was incorporated into the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a massive crime bill that sought to fund 100,000 new police officers and included significant investments in prisons and crime prevention programs. Also championed by Biden, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act — including VAWA — passed the Senate in 1993 by a wide margin, 95-4, and McConnell was among those who supported it.

However, when the law came back to the Senate via a final conference report, it included several new provisions, including an assault weapons ban, which McConnell opposed. That bill passed the Senate 61-38, largely along partisan lines. McConnell was among the majority of Republicans who opposed it. The bill was later signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Nonetheless, this version of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was not a clean up-or-down vote on VAWA.

VAWA was reauthorized and enhanced in 2000 when it was added to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which passed the Senate unanimously. VAWA was again reauthorized and enhanced by unanimous consent in 2005. So McConnell can be said to have twice supported reauthorization of VAWA, in 2000 and 2005.

And that brings us to 2012, when VAWA reauthorization became a bit of an election-year political football.

Democrats that year added provisions to VAWA reauthorization that Republicans generally opposed, such as extending protections to same-sex couples. Republicans also opposed an expansion of the number of temporary visas for immigrants in the country illegally who claim they are victims of domestic violence. And some Republicans also expressed concernabout provisions dealing with new protections for Native Americans, arguing the provisions would allow tribal courts to try non-Native Americans accused of domestic violence on reservations.

In an interview with Politico prior to the vote, McConnell accused the Democrats of politicizing an issue that otherwise enjoyed bipartisan support.

“We’re all in favor of the Violence Against Women Act – as you know, it was passed on a voice vote when we were in the majority here [in 2005],” McConnell said. “Any fight here would be completely manufactured on their part — there’s nothing to fight about.”

McConnell supported a substitute VAWA bill proposed by Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, which stripped out some of the “problematic provisions” of the Democratic version, and sought to strengthen VAWA by, for example, toughening criminal penalties. But that bill failed.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed the Democratic version of the bill by a vote of 68-31 on April 26, 2012 – with McConnell voting against it — but the effort died in the Republican-controlled House.

The issue of VAWA reauthorization reemerged in 2013. As he had the year before, McConnell supported a Republican substitute bill proposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley. The Grassley versionwould have kept funding levels the same, but would have increased the mandatory minimum sentences for aggravated sexual assault, and it called for a federal magistrate to oversee domestic violence cases in Native American territories. The Grassley plan, however, was rejected by a vote of 34-65.

The Democratic version of VAWA reauthorization passed 78-22, with 23 Republicans voting in favor of it (and McConnell voting against it). It was ultimately signed into law by President Obama .

In early July, McConnell contended that he is a longtime supporter of VAWA, but that he simply supported a different version than the one passed by the Senate.

“Actually I voted for a much stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act [the Grassley bill] than the one that ended up passing the Senate,” McConnell said. “So I’d be happy to have that debate with my opponent or anyone else because I voted for a much stronger provision.”

So it’s true that McConnell twice voted against reauthorization of VAWA — including a 2013 version that received healthy Republican support in the Senate — but in both cases, McConnell supported an alternative, Republican version of VAWA.

 Equal Pay for Women

As for the ad’s claim that McConnell voted “against enforcing equal pay for women,” the ad references two votes by McConnell, one against the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2012 and another against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. But whether those were votes “against enforcing equal pay for women” is a matter of political debate.

The Paycheck Fairness Act sought to bridge pay disparities between men and women and included provisions that prohibited companies from barring employees from talking with co-workers about their pay; required businesses to give a reason for disparities in pay; and allowed women to sue employers for punitive damages if they were paid unfairly.

Republicans uniformly opposed the bill, arguing that the law already prohibits unequal pay based on gender, and warning the bill would simply increase civil lawsuits.

”We don’t think America suffers from a lack of litigation,” McConnell said in a press conference after the vote.

Republicans successfully blocked the bill from moving forward to a vote on June 5, 2012. In fact, Republicans have blocked similar bills several times, most recently in April. McConnell contended the bill is “just another Democrat idea that threatens to hurt the very people it claims to help.”

The other bill referenced in the Grimes ad is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which expanded women’s ability to sue in pay discrimination cases. Prior to the Lilly Ledbetter law, federal courts held that the statute of limitations for a gender discrimination lawsuit ended 180 days after the first instance of discrimination. The law extended that to 180 days after thelast instance of discrimination, essentially a person’s last paycheck at a company.

In a press release explaining his opposition, McConnell said he supports equal pay for equal work, but believed the bill would unfairly hurt businesses by “eliminating the statute of limitations on pay discrimination” cases. McConnell supported a failed amendment from Hutchison that would have started the 180-day statute of limitation clock from “the date when the person aggrieved has, or should be expected to have, enough information to support a reasonable suspicion of such discrimination.”

Despite McConnell’s opposition, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate 61-36, and President Obama later signed it into law, his first as president.

We don’t take a position on whether the two votes highlighted in the Grimes ad were votes “against enforcing equal pay for women.” We provided McConnell’s fuller position to show this is a matter of debate, and we’ll leave that up to readers to decide.

Treaty to Combat Violence Against Women: European Union

The world's most far-reaching treaty on combatting violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation, comes into force on Friday in a dozen European states.

An estimated 12 women are killed by gender-related violence in Europe every day, with domestic violence accounting for almost a third of all murders in the region.

The 2011 Istanbul Convention had to be ratified by at least 10 Council of Europe member states to come into force a milestone met in April with the addition of tiny Andorra.

Nils Muiznieks, rights commissioner for the pan-European watchdog, said the text "could not come at a better time."

"Violence against women remains one of the most widespread human rights violations" in Europe, he said in a statement.

"Intimate partner violence is still among the major causes of non-accidental death, injury and disability for women."

Last year, domestic violence claimed the lives of 121 women in France, 134 in Italy, 37 in Portugal, 54 in Spain and 143 in the United Kingdom, according to statistics compiled by the rights watchdog.

In Azerbaijan 83 women were killed and 98 committed suicide following domestic violence, while media estimates in Turkey suggest at least 214 women were killed by men, "often despite these women having asked the authorities for protection."

Parties to the convention have an obligation to "prevent violence, protect its victims, prosecute the perpetrators, and to coordinate any such measures through comprehensive policies."

"It will contribute to ending forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and forced abortion and sterilisation," Muiznieks added.

The European Parliament estimates around half a million women and girls live with female genital mutilation in the EU, while 180,000 others are at risk each year.

Signatories also pledge to provide adequate shelter to victims of domestic violence, as austerity cutbacks threaten an already "largely insufficient" number of places according to the council.

Thirteen states to date have ratified the text including Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.

The Istanbul Convention comes into force on August 1 for the first 11. France and Sweden, which ratified it this month, will apply it from November.

Modi: India’s Shame at Rape and Violence Against Women

India should hang its head in shame over an ongoing rape crisis and dire standards of public sanitation, India’s new prime minister Narendra Modi told the nation in his first Independence Day address.

Women in India should be valued more, Modi said, which begins with addressing the country’s disgraceful record on infanticide. The gender ratio in India is at its most unbalanced since 1947, with 1000 boys for every 927 girls, and families should stop aborting girl foetuses, he said.

“People feel that sons will take care of them when they are old,” he said, speaking without notes at the Red Fort in Delhi. “But I have seen aged parents in old-age homes. I have seen families where one daughter serves parents more than five sons,

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Continuing his gender equality theme, Modi asked members of parliament to build separate toilet facilities for boys and girls in every school. Improving public sanitation and toilet facilities in homes will help put an end to outdoor defecation and allow women and girls to avoid having to leave their homes to go outside at dawn and dusk, when the risk of being raped and attacked is much greater, The Telegraph reports.

But what India and the world was waiting to hear was his remarks about rape, after a spate of vicious crimes that has damaged India’s reputation for tolerance and caused tourists to shun the country. One rape happens every 30 minutes in India, according to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Around 400 women could have “escaped” rape if there was a toilet in their home, the BBC reports.

"When we hear about incidents of rape, our heads hang in shame,” Modi said. “I want to ask every mother and father, you ask your daughters, 'Where are you going, who are you going with?' But do you ever ask your sons these questions? After all, those who rape are also someone's son."

International outrage over India’s rape problem was sparked by the brutal gang-rape of a student on a Delhi bus in 2012. She later died from her injuries. Rapes of female tourists, young children in school and two teenage female cousins, later found hanging from a tree in their Uttar Pradesh village, caused widespread protests across India and the rest of the world.

Modi also spoke about improving India’s economic prospects to benefit the poor and promised bank accounts for everyone in India, The New York Times reports. Two-fifths of Indians don’t have bank accounts.

In an effort to modernize the economy, Modi said he will get rid of the Planning Commission, a bulky and bureaucratic institution established in 1950 and a relic of India’s socialist past. The Commission once spent $50,000 renovating two office toilets while “lampooning” the country’s poor, The Times of India reports.  

Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party were elected to office in a landslide victory in May, ousting the Congress party that, except for a short period, has ruled India for most of the years since Independence from British rule in 1947. India marks its 68th Independence Day today.