Missing Ohio Women Found; U.S. Moms Fare Badly

Credit: Kerry Lannert/stirwis on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

(WOMENSENEWS)–

Cheers

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, three women reported missing over 10 years ago in Cleveland, were rescued from captivity May 7, The New York Times reported. Along with the three women, a 6-year-old girl, Berry’s daughter, was also rescued. Ariel Castro, now charged with kidnapping and rape, is being threatened with the death penalty by the local prosecutor for causing miscarriages.

As chilling details of the story emerge, it was discovered that the girl Berry gave birth to while in captivity, fathered by her captor, Castro, was delivered by another one of the young women in the house, according to a police source familiar with the investigation, CNN reported May 9.

More News to Cheer This Week:

Kuwait is launching sports leagues for women, the Associated Press reported May 10.

Rape victims during the Guatemalan war are breaking their silence in a criminal trial in which former Guatemalan dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt and his former intelligence chief Jose Mauricio Rodriguez are facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the early 1980s phase of the nation’s civil war, Reuters Thomson reported May 10.

A woman trapped for 16 days beneath the rubble of a collapsed building on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, was discovered alive May 10 and then rushed to a nearby military hospital after rescuers pulled her free, The New York Times reported.

Sara Blakely, who became the youngest female billionaire in the world through her Spanx fortune, is also the first to join Warren Buffett‘s and Bill Gates‘ Giving Pledge, ABC News reported May 9.

Texas lawmakers who have been on a crusade against Planned Parenthood for over a year are now working to restore the family planning funding they slashed, Think Progress reported May 9.

Back-of-the bus seating for women on any public transport in
Israel will soon be outlawed, the justice minister announced, Al Arabiya reported May 9.

After more than 65,000 people signed two students’ petition on Change.org, calling for more sexual assault prevention training for high school coaches, the National Federation of High School Associations has announced that new resources would be made available to coaches nationwide to help them prevent rape and sexual violence, Change.org announced in a press statement May 8.

The first female candidate has registered for the upcoming presidential election in
Iran, according to the Fars News Agency, The World Bulletin reported May 8.

A federal judge, Edward Korman, criticized the Food and Drug Administration over its refusal to make emergency contraception available to girls of all ages without a prescription, saying the agency’s move to restrict distribution to consumers aged 15 and older was not realistic, Reuters reported May 8. On May 10 Korman refused to suspend his order requiring that the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill be made available to all ages without a prescription, The New York Times reported.

Delaware became the 11th state to legalize same-sex marriage after a lengthy debate May 7 in the state Senate and the surprise votes of two lawmakers, USA Today reported.

Saudi Arabia‘s girls will be allowed to play sports in private schools for the first time in the latest of a series of incremental changes aimed at slowly increasing women’s rights in the ultraconservative kingdom, The Guardian reported May 5.

Jeers

This year, the U.S. dropped five spots from last year’s 25th-place ranking to become the 30th best country to be a mom, according to the annual State of the World’s Mothers Report released by Save the Children foundation this week.

However, according to the report, while the U.S performs quite well on educational and economic status (both 10th in the world), it still lags behind all other top-ranked countries on maternal health, being 46th in the world.

In the United States, women face a 1 in 2,400 risk of maternal death. Only five developed countries in the world — Albania, Latvia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine — perform worse than the United States on this indicator. A woman in the U.S. is more than 10 times as likely as a woman in Estonia, Greece or Singapore to eventually die from a pregnancy-related cause.

Finland ranks first in best countries to be a mom, followed by Sweden and Norway, for having high scores in mothers’ and children’s overall health, educational, economic and political status.

This year’s report focuses on newborn health. Over 1 million infants die on their first day of life. The United States has the highest first-day death rate in the industrialized world. In 2011, about 11,300 babies died in the U.S. on their first day of life; this is 50 percent more first-day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined. Babies born to low-income moms are most at risk.

More News to Jeer This Week:

A Pentagon survey indicated that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010, and an angry President Barack Obama and Congress demanded action,
The New York Times reported May 7.

The Marine Corps is investigating an offensive website — apparently tied to active duty and reserve Marines — which contained misogynistic images and comments about women in the corps, Fox News reported May 9.

The Air Force official in charge of its sexual-assault policies was arrested for groping, NBC News reported May 6.

A new Danish TV show features a series of naked women standing quietly in front of and having their bodies judged by two men, Time Magazine reported May 9. The “Blachman” show, hosted by jazz musician Thomas Blachman, has stirred up controversy over its sexist humiliation of women, The Sun reported.

Around a dozen babies are born every day in Zaatari camp in Jordan, the Associated Press reported May 7. The camp is home to 120,000 Syrians and counting — and there’s only one, overworked Moroccan doctor performing C-sections.

Too many pregnant women are not getting timely dental care, experts say, The New York Times reported May 6.

Pro-choice activists are risking up to 14 years in prison to spread the word about how Irish women can safely travel to Great Britain to obtain an abortion, Think Progress reported May 7.

Across the United States, more girls are being told what not to wear because it might be a “distraction” for boys, or because adults decide it makes them look “inappropriate,” Think Progress reported May 6.

Programs that help victims of domestic violence have started to suffer from decreased funding due to tight state budgets and previous federal cuts, Mother Jones reported May 6.

One out of every four brides is a child in Turkey, warned an association of Turkish female lawyers, Hurriyet Daily News reported May 4.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews flooded into the Old City’s Western Wall Plaza early May 10 in a boisterous and sometimes violent protest against a group of female activists exercising a newly court-affirmed right to pray at the holy site in a similar fashion as men do, the Los Angeles Times reported May 10.

Noted:

A new union-sponsored television ad urges Los Angeles voters to “make history” by electing Wendy Greuel to be the city’s first female mayor, the Los Angeles Times reported May 9.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’ alon has approved equalizing the period of compulsory military service for male and female soldiers, China press agency Xinhua reported May 6.

Nurse-led home visits result in a significant increase in quality of mother-infant interaction and a decrease in the severity of postpartum depression, according a study published by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nursing.

A Merck and Co. sales representative is suing the drug maker for at least $100 million, saying Merck doesn’t give women equal opportunities for advancement and punishes employees for taking maternity leave, the Associated Press reported May 9.

In order to experience street harassment faced by women, an Egyptian TV show dresses a man as a woman and lets him wander the streets of Cairo while filming with a hidden camera the reactions of male bystanders. Veiled or not veiled, the man experienced street harassment the same way as any female victim. Watch video here.