Don't join any of these group ISIS, Al Qaida, Al Shabab and Boko haram these are human traffickers

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

AL Jazeera

Boko Haram

Boko Haram survivors suffer from fear and stigma

Many Nigerians have fled the armed group several times and struggle to deal with the physical and emotional trauma.


Women in Gombyo camp in Borno state line up to receive aid from local and international NGOs [Fragkiska Megaloudi/Al Jazeera]
Maiduguri, Nigeria - Kabiru, a tall man in his late 20s, is exhausted. With a group of men, he has to prepare food for about 2,000 displaced Nigerians living in Gombyo camp.
Kabiru, who goes only by one name, pours water in a large pot of rice. His task is to ensure there's enough firewood and water to keep the rice boiling. It's hard work, especially under the searing sun in northeastern Nigeria.
More than two million people have been displaced in the region since 2009, when the armed Boko Haram group launched military operations to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state in the northeast.
Eighty percent of the displaced come from Borno state - the epicentre of the conflict. Many have sought refuge in Maiduguri, the state capital, living with friends and relatives, or renting overcrowded houses.
Others have fled to neighbouring Chad, Niger or Cameroon.

RELATED: My Nigeria

The influx of displaced people has overstretched the already limited housing capacity of host communities. Only eight percent live in camps for internally displaced people.
A cholera outbreak that struck in early September has killed 20 people so far and sickened 1,500 others in Gombyo camp outside Maiduguri. The spread of disease is exacerbated by poor sanitary conditions, as there are only 82 latrines for 8,000 people who live there.
More than two million people are displaced in Borno state - and about half are children [Fragkiska Megaloudi/Al Jazeera]
In addition to the harsh difficult physical conditions, displaced Nigerians must also deal with emotional suffering.
Many were forced to flee unspeakable violence and persecution more than once. According to  humanitarian agencies and government data, 64 percent of those escaping Boko Haram fighters have been displaced several times. 
"The impact of insecurity on families forced to flee attacks on civilians and military offensives is immense," said Kasper Engborg, head of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Nigeria.
"Beyond the economic impact and growing vulnerability of families who risk being separated with each new displacement, the coping capacity of both displaced people and the host communities across northeast Nigeria is being exhausted at an alarming rate," said Engborg.
'We lost everything'
Kabiru used to be a farmer, but after seeing Boko Haram fighters kill his brother in January, he fled for his life to neighbouring Chad, where he stayed for three months doing menial jobs to survive. When fighting came to Chad, Kabiru fled to Niger where again he started anew.
In May, following a Boko Haram attack on an islet in Lake Chad, Niger authorities deported 4,000 Nigerians, including Kabiru who was brought to Gombyo camp.
Kabiru (centre) has repeatedly fled Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, Chad, and Niger [Fragkiska Megaloudi/Al Jazeera]
Kabiru's case is not unique.
Aliyu Muhamad, 35, was fishing when Boko Haram attacked his town of Kukalor, killing his elderly father and two brothers. He managed to reunite with his wife and three children and they fled to Chad, where he established a small fishing business. But his ordeal was far from finished.
"They [Boko Haram] attacked us early in the morning. I was getting ready to go to my business when they came. I took my family and ran away. For the second time we lost everything; we left only with the clothes we had on."
After fleeing from Chad, Aliyu spent three months in Niger, but he was deported back to Nigeria following an escalation of Boko Haram attacks in the region. He was brought to Gombyo camp where he is separated from his wife and children.
Camp policy forbids men and women from living under the same roof, even if they are married. This adds to the emotional distress of the displaced.

RELATED: Nigeria's future: Failed state or African superpower?

"Houses are given randomly to the people and - mainly for security reasons but also for the protection of the unmarried women - we keep the men separated from the women," explained Sadiq Bashara, a camp official from the Borno State Emergency Management Agency.
Umar Sani, one of Gombyo camp's managers, said there are plans to allow families to live together, but security remains the top priority.
"We still need to investigate many of the recent arrivals in the camp, as we suspect that Boko Haram informers might infiltrate the camp. We located five suspects among the IDPs [internally displaced people] just a week ago," Sani said.
For security reasons men are separated from women in the government-run camps in Borno [Fragkiska Megaloudi/Al Jazeera]
On the edge of Gombyo camp, a group of more than 50 women gathered outside their concrete house. They had all been kidnapped by Boko Haram, but managed to escape. They look wary and tired and seem to be distant from the other women in the camp.
Their children, some visibly malnourished, stare and greet visitors, but nobody comes closer.

RELATED: Girls who escaped Boko Haram refuse to be victims

Hajia Binta, 38 years old, nurses her newborn baby while attending to her older daughter. She is from a village near Konduga, a town 35 kilometres from Maiduguri. When Boko Haram attacked their community, most people fled. But the fighters set fire to buildings and in the ensuing panic, some women were trapped.
"We did not know where to run. They surrounded the village and when the fire broke I just ran back," said Binta in a soft voice. "They circled us and ordered us to follow them."
Boko Haram fighters kept the women imprisoned in the community school.
"The food was never enough and some days we had nothing to eat. We were begging them to give us more food. Every time they were coming, I could feel my knees trembling from fear," said Aisha Mohamed, a 38-year-old mother of three.
The women spent five months there until the insurgents brought them to another location in the Sambisa forest. They had to farm and cook and also fetch water from the community wells at night. Fear, despair and submission kept them from trying to escape.
Eventually, a military raid targeted the Boko Haram hideout where the women were held and the fighters fled, leaving the women behind.
The Nigerian army brought them to Gombyo camp in August. Binta was pregnant when she arrived at Gombyo, and gave birth to a baby daughter in early October.
Hajia Binta was held by Boko Haram for several months before being rescued by the Nigerian military [Fragkiska Megaloudi/Al Jazeera]
Boko Haram has been known to sexually abuse women in captivity. But the stigma against being a rape victim is strong here, and none of the women at Gombyo camp said they had been physically or sexually assaulted.
In collaboration with local and foreign agencies, the Nigerian government is providing the freed women and girls with counselling and medical care to help with their children - or their pregnancies.
"People are deeply traumatised of what they have gone through in the hands of Boko Haram," said Musa Baba, a programme analyst in Borno for the United Nations Population Fund, which  provides psychosocial support and mental health counselling to displaced people in the camps. 
"If you talk to the women they will tell you they have heard about sexual violence. But if you ask them to whom that has happened they will not talk," explained Baba.
Because of the stigma, Baba added: "People prefer to settle their cases individually and let the survivors to bear their burden. This is what we are working on to change."
Follow Fragkiska Megaloudi on Twitter:  @Fran221175 

  •  
  • 79
  •   
  • 90
 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/boko-haram-survivors-suffer-fear-stigma-151021064205232.html
Source: Al Jazeera



India's Dalit rape victims cry for justice

AL Jazeera

India

About 90 Dalit families camping in New Delhi for more than two weeks to demand action against perpetrators.

Neyaz Farooquee | | India

Dalits have long complained of discrimination at the hands of the Jats [Neyaz Farooquee/Al Jazeera]
New Delhi and Bhagana, Haryana - At a protest site in the heart of India's capital, New Delhi, four gang-rape victims - the youngest of whom is 13 - drape dupattas (scarves) across their faces as they help other women cook for the fellow protesters.
About 90 Dalit families - formerly untouchables - from the nearby Haryana state have been camping at the Jantar Mantar for the past three weeks just a few hundred metres from India's parliament in the hope of putting pressure on politicians.
It was a consensual act. There was some chakkar [an illicit relationship] between one of the girls and an accused boy. It's all politics.
Rakesh Panghal, village headman, Bhagana
They are demanding action against the culprits and compensation to the victims - demands that they allege were ignored by the state government.
On Monday, the father of one the rape victims ate poison, accusing that his grievances were not being heard. He was admitted to a city hospital and is now out of danger.
The latest movement originated in Haryana's Hisar district west of New Delhi following the gang-rape of the Dalit girls from Bhagana village a month ago that many see as a backlash by dominant Jat castes against Dalits' assertion of their rights.
The members of this social group, mostly landless labourers, have long complained of discrimination at the hands of the Jat caste in a state considered an economic success.
Protest camp
Pictures from previous protests about violence against Dalits hang inside the tents, along with the portraits of Bhimrao Ambedkar, the celebrated Dalit campaigner and architect of India's constitution, and social reformer Jyotirao Phule, who advocated abolition of untouchability.
Villagers sit in a huddle with activists and well-wishers and discuss steps to confront official indifference towards the daily abuses many face.
India's home affairs minister, Sushilkumar Shinde - himself a Dalit - has told them that he understood their problems and that he would write to Haryana's chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a Jat.
Yogendra Yadav, of the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party - who contested the parliamentary elections from the nearby Gurgaon seat in Haryana - visited the protesters and promised to take up their cause.
Dalit leader, Udit Raj, who aligned with the principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the polls, also sent reassurances to the New Delhi camp - but the protesters want more than assurances.
"Get [the BJP leader] Narendra Modi to say this," said Dalit rights activist, Vedpal Singh Tanwar, a high caste Rajput.
Someone reminded the gathering about the success of protests following the gang-rape of a paramedic in 2012. They too plan a candle-light procession to demand the arrest of the village headman whose relatives they accuse of being involved in the gang-rape.
Deserted village
When Al Jazeera visited the protesters' home in Bhagana village, it looked deserted: many Dalits had locked up their homes and left after intimidation by Jats.
In 2012, about 70 families fled the village following threats. Jats stopped them from using the village pond, encroached upon their playground, and boycotted their shops.
Those who leave face enormous challenges, with few technical skills to work in urban areas, and many end up living on the pavement and working in Hisar's informal economy.
A few men were assembled in a room smoking a waterpipe. One of them, Rohit Bokda, volunteered to show Al Jazeera around.
Less than 100 metres outside the village, Rohit pointed to the place where the girls were kidnapped - a narrow road running through vast wheat-field - on March 24 this year. A white car had driven up and they were bundled into it and away.
He told Al Jazeera that the girls were fed "something" that knocked them unconscious - then gang raped somewhere in the fields.
Rohit and other villagers allege that the village head, Rakesh Panghal, knew what was going on and that his relatives were involved.
Jats had erected a wall blocking the way to Dalit homes - since demolished by a court order [M Reyaz/Al Jazeera]
It's all politics
It is not the first case of Dalit women being harassed in the area. Rohit said he has even had fights with Jat youth about it.
Three months ago he had a fight with local Jats after her cousin was harassed. "They threw a brick at me," he said, while displaying the scar from the wound on his head.
A village panchayat or assembly was called to resolve the issue and decided that both parties should apologise to each other.
"We did," said Rohit. "But they never said sorry."
Inside the village, bricks lie scattered across a community space where Jats had erected a wall blocking the way to Dalit homes - since demolished by a court order.
A few minutes walk from Rohit's home is the playground where he and his friends used to play, now divided into small plots by the Jats - illustrating one of the methods used by upper caste communities to curb the freedom of this largely powerless community.
The village headman, Panghal, a Jat, lives on the "other side" of the village to Rohit's.
A young man of medium built, he sits in his front room playing cards, and denies the allegation that he was aware of the girls' kidnapping and his relatives were involved.
"It was a consensual act," he insisted. "There was some chakkar [an illicit relationship] between one of the girls and an accused boy. It's all politics."
Jats in Haryana, meanwhile, have been able to mobilise political support to gain Other Backward Class (OBC) status, an official category providing them benefits, including jobs and education.
Unintended consequences: India's rape crisis
They are also economically powerful and, in Bhagana, their plots are on average three to four acres while the Dalits mostly remain landless and work as field labourers.
Dalits are increasingly rebelling against violence and discrimination but dominating upper castes have long resisted any assertion of their rights.
In 1997, a private militia of upper caste men massacred 58 Dalits in Laxmanpur Bathe village in eastern Bihar state, while a Dalit Sikh was attacked and badly mutilated in 2006 for protesting against the gang-rape of his daughter in Punjab.
That same year in western Maharashtra state's Khairlanji district, four members of a Dalit family were killed, two of them allegedly gang raped. In 2010 in Mirchpur, Haryana, villagers burned down Dalit homes.
The most recent figures indicated that there were 32,569 acts of violence against Dalits in 2010, yet the daily humiliations they face remain low on the national agenda and most cases of violence against them go unnoticed and never reach the courts.
Moreover, the national conviction rate of 24 percent means that most of the accused escape punishment. In Haryana, just eight out of 100 such cases results in convictions.
'Rape capital'
Back in New Delhi, the protest goes on. Speakers rise and appeal passionately to their audience as they prepare for their candle-light procession.
India is a free country. Everyone is free. Why should we remain slaves?
Rohit Bokda, Protester
"Haryana has become the rape capital," said one of the protesters.
The gathering of 200 people is then told that their march planned at a park in a nearby shopping district, Connaught Place, has been banned by the police.
So the candle-light procession goes in the opposite direction - towards India Gate, scene of one of the biggest protests following the New Delhi gang-rape case of 2012.
A barricade is thrown up to stop the march, barely a hundred metre from the camp.
The protesters turn back within minutes and return to where they had started out as their candles flicker in the hot summer wind.
Rohit too is part of the protest. He waves his hands in the air. "India is a free country. Everyone is free. Why should we remain slaves?"
Follow Neyaz Farooquee on Twitter

Source: Al Jazeera




http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/05/india-dalit-rape-victims-cry-justice-201451372524505213.html

Arrests made after Dalit children burned alive in India

AL Jazeera

Human Rights

Arson attack, reportedly over a family feud, has led to protests as communal tensions rise.

| Human Rights, Asia

Caste-related violence has gripped India for decades but authorities have ruled out caste violence in this case [Azaan Javaid/DNA]
Police in northern India have arrested four men over allegations that they burned alive two children from India's impoverished Dalit community in an arson attack.
The arrests on Wednesday came amid street protests as communal tensions rose, and as condemnation came from Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress, over a failure to protect the victims.
The toddler and the 11-month-old infant died after their home in Faridabad district adjoining Delhi was set on fire on Tuesday.
The father of the children, Jitender, said the family was sleeping when the attackers doused their house with petrol and set it on fire.
"Shadow of insecurity"
"Dalits have long been marginalised in India," Kaushal K Vidyarthee, a researcher on Dalit issues at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.
"This incident will ensure that any remaining trust between the police/administration and the Dalit community will be completely finished. Dalits will be living under the shadow of insecurity and fear.
"The only way to regain, to prevent the breach of trust from getting worse, will be to ensure speedy justice for the family and the community."
The childrens' parents, who hail from the bottom rungs of India's millennia-old social hierarchy rooted in the Hindu religion, were both injured in the attack, a state police official said.
Jitender said the attack was a fallout from an old feud with an upper-caste group in the village.
But authorities ruled out caste violence as a motive for the crime, however India has a long history of such incidents, and the attack will feed concerns over rising intolerance after the rumour-fuelled killing of a Muslim man by a Hindu mob recently.
On Wednesday, two men carried the bodies of the dead children wrapped in white shrouds during a protest by about 1,000 people demanding action.
The protest blocked a major highway to the northern city of Agra, home to the Taj Mahal monument, and argued with police.
Caste-based violence
Al Jazeera's Nidhi Dutt in India said: "The situation on the groung remains tense, there is a high security presence which is expected to continue.
This particular area has been susceptible to caste-based violence for many years."
Haryana, the northern state, is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Eight policemen have been suspended for negligence, state police said.
"Dalits are increasingly becoming aware of their rights and raising their voice against discrimination and atrocities," added Vidyarthee. "Future efforts needs to be in that direction." 
With additional reporting by Anealla Safdar
  •  
  • 3669
  •   
  • 407
  • 1
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Friday, October 9, 2015

River (Anti-Colonial struggles of Robert Lovelace)

The Dark Dancers

saudi Behave for bangladeshi people 1

Filipina maid, pinaso ng kumukulong tubig ng Saudi employer!

Saudi Man Beats Bangladeshi maids!!

Saudi woman facing jail after posting footage of husband sexually abusing maid+ video

A woman in Saudi Arabia has secretly filmed her husband cheating on her at their home by groping a housemaid. The vengeful wife published the video online, but now faces up to one year in prison according to the kingdom’s laws against revenge videos.

In the scandalous video, a man in traditional Saudi white robes is seen apparently putting his hands all over a female maid in a room that looks like a kitchen. At one point, when the woman's hands are busy as she's holding a tray or a plate, the man tries to kiss her, while she attempts to pull away.

The alleged encounter of the husband with his domestic staff was apparently secretly filmed by the man's wife with a phone camera. She then posted it online, local media reported this week, saying that before the original clip was taken down from the internet it had gone viral in the Arab state.
"The minimum punishment for this husband is to scandalize him," the unnamed wife wrote in her caption to the video, Emirates 24/7 News reported.
Her public revenge has divided social media users in Saudi Arabia, Gulf News reported, saying that her actions have been both condemned and supported by people in the devout Muslim society.
 
"What she did in fact was to expose her private life and problems for everyone to see," the media cited one blogger as saying. "She has to live with the consequences of what she did.”
"I salute you warmly for your valiant courage," another blogger reportedly wrote, adding that "there was an urgent need for revenge and your revenge is the best."
But in what might come as a surprise to a western audience, the revenge is now upon the Saudi woman herself, as according to the Gulf state’s laws she might be jailed for up to a year.
According to Saudi lawyer Majid Qaroob, cited by Emirates 24/7, the man’s wife "faces up to one year in prison or a fine of SR [Saudi Riyal] 500,000 [around $133,000] for defaming her husband."
The law "on information technology crimes" stipulates "stiff punishment" for anyone who films others with various devices, including smartphones with cameras, in order to "defame them," the Saudi lawyer said.

Saudi Arabian Employer chops off hand of woman for trying to escape torture

A woman from Tamil Nadu -- working in a Saudi household as a domestic help -- has been hospitalized in Riyadh in a critical condition after her right hand was chopped off by he employer


A woman from Tamil Nadu -- working in a Saudi household as a domestic help -- has been hospitalised in Riyadh in a critical condition after her right hand was chopped off by he employer, as per TV reports.
Kasturi Munirathnam, who has suffered severe injuries on her body and limbs, has been admitted to Kingdom Hospital, Manorama News reported.
The woman, who hails from North Arcot near Vellore, had reached Saudi Arabia two months ago. In August, Kasturi was first taken to Damam and later shifted to a house in Riyadh, where only women stayed.
She was reportedly burdened with heavy workload, constantly abused physically and mentally, and was not even allowed to have telephonic conversation with her relatives in India.
When Kasturi managed to get help from a Tamil Nadu native, she was locked up inside a room and was subjected to mental and physical torture ever since.
Once when she received death threat from the women, she tried to escape through the window of her room. However, when she got out, her hand was chopped off allegedly by her employer.
Currently, the Tamil Nadu wing of Indian Social Forum is taking care of the woman. The Indian embassy officials have met her and extended all support to her.
The investigation, which was carried out by Al-Sahafa police, has been handed over to Saudi Investigation Bureau, reports said.
Kasturi is the breadwinner of her family, which consists of her ailing husband, three daughters and one son.
source: ibtimes