General

Violence at home

Today’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, another of those ghettoized “good cause” days, this one intended to focus attention on systemic gender-based brutality. Hence this new  report on domestic violence in Egypt that claims almost half of married Egyptian women have been physically abused by their husbands. Or we can contemplate details from today’s arrest of 10 Taliban members for the grotesque acid attack on 15 Afghan schoolgirls and teachers earlier this month that indicate the brutes were paid $2,000 for their efforts. And lest white-ribbon-wearing Canadians feel too smugly distant from the violence, a  key United Nations human rights monitoring body has just issued a critical report on this country’s record on women’s human rights, focusing on the failure of law enforcement agencies to deal with the disappearance and murder of Aboriginal women and girls.

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