Walgelijk vrij lastig vallen van Indische vrouwen

Enkele maanden geleden werden weer eens twee jonge meisjes werden opgeknoopt aan een boom na een groepsverkrachting in de weilanden rond hun huis in India, en een minister van de regeringspartij heeft gereageerd door te zeggen dat verkrachting "een sociale misdaad is... soms is het goed, soms is het verkeerd."

Hoe zou zo iets ooit 'goed' kunnen zijn?
Het is walgelijk! Maar dit incident is geen uitzondering. Alaphia is zelf aangevallen voor de ogen van hoge politieagenten, en ze deden niets. Zij weet dat het systeem de vrouwen van India aan hun lot overlaat. Maar zij,ik en nog enkele anderen denken dat wij hier samen verandering in kunnen brengen.

English: Varanasi, India as seen from Ganga river. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Het verkiezingsprogramma van de nieuwe leider van Alaphia haar land draaide om de belofte om van de heilige stad waar hij verkozen is, Varanasi, opnieuw een grote toeristische trekpleister te maken. Als wij met miljoenen mensen wereldwijd samenkomen om op te roepen tot de bescherming van vrouwen, en de stad van premier Modi hiermee volplakken, zal hij stappen moeten zetten om zijn toerismeplan te kunnen redden.

Een dergelijke advertentiecampagne heeft nog nooit eerder plaatsgevonden in India. Maar dit is een nationale crisis die drastische maatregelen vergt.

Teken nu -- laten we twee miljoen mensen bijeenbrengen om van Modi te eisen dat hij de meisjes en vrouwen van India beschermt:

https://secure.avaaz.org/nl/womanifesto_modi_ob/?bIyfhib&v=41939

Toen de meisjes van 14 en 15 vermist raakten, ging de vader van één van hen naar de politie en smeekte hen op handen en knieën om iets te doen. Ze lachten hem uit en stuurden hem terug naar huis. Talloze gezinnen in India die met deze nachtmerrie geconfronteerd worden, krijgen te maken met dit soort schandalige passiviteit van de politie. Na de internationale opschudding zijn uiteindelijk vijf mannen gearresteerd en twee politieagenten geschorst. Maar elke 22 minuten wordt iemand verkracht in India, en de politie, de rechterlijke macht, en zelfs ministers laten ons in de steek!
Voor de verkiezingen was er een massale beweging op gang gekomen om dringende maatregelen af te dwingen om geweld tegen vrouwen te stoppen. Deskundigen stelden een "Womanifesto" op -- een plan gebaseerd op gezond verstand met hoognodige hervormingen om een einde te maken aan de verkrachtingsepidemie. Het gaat in op wetgeving, politiewerk, medische en psychologische ondersteuning, en het allerbelangrijkste -- onderwijs en voorlichting. Andere belangrijke partijen hebben hun naam eronder gezet, maar Modi negeerde het.
Zelfs het personeel van Modi staat achter de hoofdmoot van het plan. Nu moet Modi het alleen nog uitvoeren.
Tot nu toe heeft Modi nog niets gezegd over de beledigende uitspraken van zijn partijgenoot, maar de president van India heeft aangegeven dat deze nieuwe regering “een zerotolerancebeleid voert wat betreft geweld tegen vrouwen.” Laten we een grootschalige petitie opzetten en Varanasi volplakken met aanplakbiljetten om op te roepen tot onmiddellijke vertaling van deze belofte in een actieplan. Teken nu:

https://secure.avaaz.org/nl/womanifesto_modi_ob/?bIyfhib&v=41939

De schok bij het zien van deze foto kan ons verlammen met bedroefdheid, of het kan ons aanzetten tot actie. Overal in mijn land eisen vrouwen dat er een einde komt aan deze cultuur van verkrachtingen, en zij strijden om tot gelijkheid en veiligheid voor iedereen te komen. Alsjeblieft, sluit je bij ons aan om dit geweld te stoppen!

Met hoop, 
Marcus en Alaphia, met het Avaaz-team

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Are Christadelphians so Old Fashioned?

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Zijn Christadelphians zo 'Old fashioned'?

The ‘Sunday Reading’ from The Christadelphian (90.1072.309), 1953 is quoted and called 'old fashioned’ by popular opinion but numerous professional studies confirm their opinion about what we do have to encounter or the many sexualized content is damaging.
Today we can find an over sexualized media content and do find an attitude by people that it is just great to have good fun. When we hear some people at work speak about partners it looks like they are changing them as they are changing their underwear.

Today we have to face the many divorces and difficulties in households and in schools, but no wonder.

• Numerous studies have shown a connection between stereotypical attitudes about women’s sexuality and aggressive sexual behaviour. Several have shown that women and men exposed to sexually objectifying images from mainstream media were significantly more accepting of rape myths, sexual harassment, sex role stereotypes, interpersonal violence, and adversarial sexual beliefs about relationships.’, Bailey, ‘Consequences Of the Sexualization of Girls: American Psychological Association Report Part IV’, From Now On: The Newsletter of the Montgomery County Chapter of the National Organization for Women (2007).
• The mass media have been shown to affect a broad range of adolescent health-related attitudes and behaviours including violence, eating disorders, and tobacco and alcohol use.
• Youth exposure to sexual content on television shapes sexual attitudes and behaviour in a manner that may influence reproductive health outcomes.
• Pornography tends to see sexual practices as divorced from any tender considerations for one’s partner There is plenty of evidence that it sometimes does harm.
• Worse even than the violence and the ridicule of all the kindly virtues is the preoccupation with sex.
• Today there is a stimulation of the wrong kind of emotions by making sex, drink and the different ways of having “a good time".
• Let the conning of certain modern magazines be utterly banned, and let the modern sex-ridden novel—one of the curses of this generation—be wisely consigned to the dustbin.

Read:Sexualized media & sex education
+ Social effects of media
+ Social effects of divorce