WOMEN'S ISSUES

An estimated 150,000 girls work as prostitutes in Angeles, Philippines and of that 30,000 are children, some as young as six years old. Young girls are forced to work up to 20 hours a day and expected to service up to 100 customers a week. In return they get a bowl of rice while the owners rake in millions.

Most of the bars are owned by Americans, Australians and Germans. They pay off corrupt police, military, barangy and city hall officials. The bars are visited by politicians, diplomats and other well known personalities in search of children. The girls are locked away to sleep watched over by armed security guards who carry shotguns and batons. The buildings are surrounded by razor wire as used in prisons.

The average life expectancy of a bar girl is 25. The customers are foreign men.

Anyone who dares speaks out is quickly disposed of by the gangs. Ning-Ning was just 16 years old when she was taken from her province of Samar, Philippines, by the prostitution crime gangs of Angeles City, Philippines. "They put me in a dark room with dozens of other young girls. Everyone was coughing and sick. You were not allowed to talk or the guards would beat you. They forced you to service up to 20 customers a day. You were
only allowed a few hours sleep. If you were lucky they fed you some stale rice with water. When you slept they chained you to the bed. After what I think was a few months I got sick. They decided to get rid of me one night. They drove me to near the base of a Mountain. They walked me to the edge of a cliff of a dried up river. As they got there gun I just decided to jump. I don't know how but I survived the fall. They thought I was dead and I heard them laughing. I think I was there for two days unable to move. I was rescued by a local who took me to his house and his family took care of me. When I was feeling better they sent me back to my province. I heard later that when the gangs found out what happened they tortured and killed the family". Ning-Ning is now 20 and is a Human Rights Campaigner fighting for the closure of the prostitution slave camps in Angeles City, Philippines.

Submitted by Susan Bryce of the Angeles Human Rights Watch.

Please feel free to copy the above article on the Philippines and place it on your web site, newspaper, magazine, university or work notice board.

AFGHANISTAN :

When Islamic fundamentalists Taliban came to power in 1992 women's basic human rights where removed.

Women are totally denied the right to education, the right to work, women have been ordered to remain in their houses, the right to travel, no woman can venture out of the house alone and unaccompanied by a prescribed male member of the woman's immediate family.

Women are also denied the right to health, no woman can see a male doctor, family planning is illegal, women cannot be operated upon by a male Doctor, the right to legal recourse, a woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s testimony, a woman cannot petition the court directly, this has to be done through a prescribed male member of her immediate family, of the right to recreation, all women’s recreational and sporting facilities have been banned, women singers cannot sing, they cannot show their faces in public to male strangers, they cannot wear bright coloured clothing, they cannot wear make up, they can only appear outside their houses clad head to foot in shapeless bags called burqas, they do not have the right to raise their voices when talking in public, they cannot laugh loud and the list goes on.

Jilted Bangladesh men are using acid against women who dare to say no. Acid has become a common weapon against women in this country, where destroying a girls face appears an acceptable way to get even.

A five year old Sudanese girl lies on a bed as she undergoes the procedure known as female genital mutilation. In this procedure, performed without anaesthesia, a girl's external sexual organs are partially or totally cut away. Female Genital Mutilation has been performed on 82 per cent  of Sudanese women.

Up to 114 million girls and women in more than 30 countries have been subjected to female genital mutilation.

It is commonly attributed to religious edict.

It is estimated that untrained traditional birth attendants perform two thirds of the procedures. They typically have limited knowledge of health and hygiene and often use inadequately cleaned traditional instruments. Side effects include trauma, bleeding and haemorrhage; pain, stress and shock; infections (which can be fatal); painful and difficult sexual relations; obstructed labour and difficult childbirth; and psychological trauma.

Case one : An 18 year old woman was stripped searched when detained for failing to produce a railway ticket.

Case Two : Children as young as 11 years old are being regularly strip searched by police. In one case a child was stripped searched in a train station in front of strangers.