Gaza is one of the world's most dangerous places to be a woman. Women are subjected to abuse and torture whilst detained by Israel or killed while fleeing.

 Israel's war on women in Gaza

In February, UN experts expressed alarm at credible allegations of human rights violations committed by the Israeli army against Palestinian women and girls in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with incidents of unlawful execution, alongside family members including children, being reported.

"We are shocked by the reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding pieces of cloth when the Israeli army or affiliated forces killed them," the statement read. 

Abeer Ayyoub

19 March, 2024

Stripped and abused by Israel, one woman in Gaza wishes she 'died sooner'

28-year-old Inas is one of the hundreds of Palestinian women in Gaza who've been detained by the Israeli army since October 7. Speaking to The New Arab, Inas says that she was subjected to verbal, physical, and psychological abuse by Israeli soldiers. 

Inas was arrested in mid-December in the Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City where she was sheltering. She was then forced to walk for two hours until she reached the Al-Shejaiya neighbourhood of eastern Gaza.

"I was handcuffed and bundled into a troop carrier [an infantry fighting vehicle]. They kept beating me until we arrived at Zikim," Inas, who prefers to hide her family name, recalls. "'Welcome to Israel', they said."

Israeli soldiers then threw wet blankets over them during the night. "I was then taken to the Anatot Military Camp where I was subjected to a strip search by female soldiers."

More than three women are killed every hour in Gaza by Israel 

 READ MORE   https://www.newarab.com/features/stripped-and-abused-women-gaza-wish-they-died-sooner

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Tala Haikal: "It may not be possible to immediately free all the kidnapped girls and women due to the scope of the conflict with ISIS and the geographical dispersal of the captives in various locations. Some of these women and girls can be freed only once ISIS is destroyed."

Haikal is a Middle East analyst at the American Task Force on Palestine, a think tank in Washington, DC. She tweets @talamay.

"ISIS has kidnapped an estimated 4,000 Iraqi girls and women from Yazidi and other minority groups for the purpose of selling them to locals or donating them to loyal jihadists. Sadly this is not unique -- traces of sexual slavery are still evident in various parts of the world, despite legislation prohibiting it -- but these crimes are being committed on an extraordinary scale by ISIS. While these barbaric rapists are fulfilling their sexual perversions the world is silently watching. Instead, the international community must work to free the Iraqi women and bring accountability to the chronically neglected issue of the victimization of women in wars.

The kidnapped women and girls are generally separated into small groups. Their price varies between $25 and $1000. Some are as young as 12 years old.  ISIS has beheaded 17 of them. There have been at least 11 reported cases of suicide, according to an email response from the Human Rights Department at Iraq’s Foreign Ministry to this writer. As described by Liz Sly of the Washington Post, only a conversion to Islam can “upgrade” the status of these captives from prison inmates to “comfort wives.”"

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/219595-isis-and-sexual-slavery

ISIS and sexual slavery

“Breaking the cycle of poverty, breaking the cycle of discrimination, breaking the cycle of inequity – the choice is ours to make.”

Flagship report launched: Adolescents are key to prosperity and equity

'The State of the World's Children 2011'

By Chris Niles

NEW YORK, USA, 25 February 2011 – Young people are the key to a more equitable and prosperous world, according to UNCEF’s new flagship report, ‘The State of the World’s Children 2011 – Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity,’ launched today at UN headquarters in New York.

VIDEO: 25 February 2011 - UNICEF correspondent Chris Niles reports on the launch of UNICEF's flagship publication,‘The State of the World’s Children 2011 – Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity,’ at UN headquarters in New York.

The report says that investing in the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents – those who are between the ages of 10 and 19 – can break entrenched cycles of poverty.

“We need to focus more attention now on reaching adolescents, especially adolescent girls, investing in education, health and other measures to engage them in the process of improving their own lives,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.

Need to reach older children

While the international community has made tremendous gains in improving the health and well-being of children under 10, the SOWC report emphasizes that less progress has been made in reaching older children.

The vast majority of these adolescents live in developing countries. Their numbers are rapidly growing, and the challenges they face are formidable:

• Almost half the world’s adolescents of secondary school-age don’t go to secondary school; they are vulnerable to trafficking and recruitment into armed groups
• About 150 million young people between the ages of 5 and 14 are engaged in child labour
• More than 70 million girls and women have undergone genital cutting, which usually occurs by the onset puberty.

“These outrageous statistics don’t even begin to cover the countless numbers of adolescents who are denied adequate nutrition, who lack access to basic health services and care, who become mothers in childhood, at great risk to their lives,” said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde Johnson, who launched the report at a press conference, together with a panel of experts.

Girls are the most overlooked

SOWC also finds that girls are often the most overlooked, even as they have the most potential to pass wealth and well-being on to their children.

“Two cents of every development dollar goes to adolescent girls globally. That makes me think that we as a community can do better,” said UN Foundation Executive Director for Women and Population Tamara Kreinin.

The report indicates that not only is it right to meet the challenges that adolescents face and give them the opportunity to participate in their societies, but it makes economic sense, as well.

“It is also the smart thing to do, enabling us to consolidate our historic gains in early childhood and child survival, and to accelerate progress,” said Ms. Johnson. “Breaking the cycle of poverty, breaking the cycle of discrimination, breaking the cycle of inequity – the choice is ours to make.”