Tens of thousands flee ‘extreme violence’ in Congo

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Child Soldiers, Congo, Genocide, internally displaced people, massacre, mutilation, rape, Rwanda, Torture, war

Tens of thousands flee ‘extreme violence’ in Congo

Villagers and townspeople in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are facing “extreme violence” with atrocities including mass executions, abductions, mutilations and rapes being committed almost daily, according to aid workers in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Fighting between the government army, the FARDC, and a group of mutineers led by a fugitive UN war crimes indictee, Bosco Ntaganda, has escalated since April. Armed militias including the notorious FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group based in Congo, have joined the fray in a multi-fronted battle for territory, money and power. But the violence has received relatively little international attention so far.

“The crisis in Congo is the worst it has been for years. The activity of armed groups has exploded, with militias making the most of the chaos to prey on the local population,” Samuel Dixon, Oxfam’s policy adviser in Goma, said on Wednesday. “Large areas of [North and South] Kivu are under the control of different armed groups – some villages are being terrorised from all sides, with up to five groups battling for power.

“Local people are bearing the brunt of extreme violence, facing the risk of massacre, rape, retaliation, abduction, mutilation, forced labour or extortion … In less than two months, more than 100,000 people in North Kivu have been forced to flee,” Dixon said.

Expressing alarm at the deteriorating situation, the UN refugee agency said the violence had sent tens of thousands of refugees spilling over the border into Rwanda and Uganda, while many more people were internally displaced.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UNHCR, said UN agencies and the Red Cross would soon begin to distribute relief supplies. “Some of the displaced report cases of extortion, forced labour, forced recruitment of minors and beatings by armed men,” Fleming said.

Aid workers said heightened instability was making it difficult to establish the true extent of the violence and to get supplies to those most in need, who had often taken refuge in remote, inaccessible areas.

“The mutiny in North Kivu is part of a broader picture of insecurity caused by multiple armed groups and by elements of the Congolese forces. Since the FARDC has been fighting the mutiny, other armed groups active in eastern Congo have opportunistically moved into areas left vacant by the army,” an internal NGO field report seen by the Guardian stated.

“In South Kivu in early May 2012, 30 people were killed in Lumenje zone by the FDLR … During the night of 13 May, at least another 40 civilians lost their lives and 35 were injured following a brutal FDLR attack on Kamananga. This incident took place only 2kms from a Monusco base [Monusco is the name of the UN’s 20,000-strong stabilisation force in Congo].”

The report went on: “A letter left by the FDLR at the scene warned of a series of revenge attacks if the opposing group, the Raia [militia], did not stop attacking them. In the last two massacres the FDLR mutilated the dead to discourage further actions against them …

“In Mambas territory, a mai mai [militia] group reportedly raped over 70 women in the second week of May and armed clashes around Itembo allegedly led to the death of 17 civilians.”

Overall, the total number of internally displaced people in Congo is believed to be at its highest level in three years: up from 1.7 million to 2 million.

The latest upheavals follow warnings, first reported in the Guardian on 16 March, that the army’s offensive against the FDLR, launched in February, could destabilise the Kivus and have disastrous consequences. Controversially, the UN supported the offensive, arguing it was the best way to end chronic instability in the region.

The army’s plan went awry last month after President Joseph Kabila of Congo called for the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda, an ex-rebel general whose forces were supposedly integrated into the FARDC in 2009.

Ntaganda is wanted by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes, including the recruitment of child soldiers, but had appeared to be enjoying to official protection. His response to Kabila’s call for his arrest was to lead a mutiny of former officers and hundreds of their men, who have formed a new rebel group called M23.

“Civilian safety has to be the number one priority for the UN and the government army,” Dixon said. “Military action against rebels must not put local people at further risk. It is unacceptable that such widespread violence in Congo goes unstopped and under-reported. More must be done to tackle the political and underlying drivers of the conflict.”

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Special report: Tamil asylum-seekers to be forcibly deported

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deportation, forced removal, rape, Sri Lanka, Torture, trauma, war, War Crimes

Special report: Tamil asylum-seekers to be forcibly deported

Dozens of Tamil asylum-seekers will be forcibly removed from Britain on a secretive deportation flight today despite credible evidence that they face arrest and retribution on their return.

A chartered plane, PTV030, is due to take off at 15.30 from an undisclosed London airport and fly direct to Colombo. Human-rights organisations have called on the UK Border Agency to halt the flight on the grounds that Tamils who are known to be critical of the Sri Lankan government have been brutally treated following their return.

The forced removals come as Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the architect of Sri Lanka’s final victorious push three years ago against the Tamil Tigers – a military offensive which defeated the brutal insurgency group but also led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians – flies into the UK to join the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Human Rights Watch has documented 13 credible cases over the past two years in which failed Tamil asylum-seekers from Europe have been tortured after landing in Sri Lanka, and warns that those cases are likely to be “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Mr Rajapaksa’s government has been accused of committing war crimes during the military offensive and of continuing to preside over a culture of impunity in which kidnap, extra-judicial killings and torture are still commonplace, particularly in the heavily militarised Tamil areas in the north.

The Foreign Office’s latest report on human rights describes Sri Lanka as an area of “serious concern” when it came to abuses. But that has not stopped the UK Border Agency, which is under political pressure from the Government to ramp up deportations, from forcibly removing hundreds of Tamils in recent months.

The agency is notoriously secretive when it comes to forcible removals, rarely announcing them until the very last minute and providing few details about who is on board.

There have been at least four chartered planes in the last six months delivering Tamils back to Sri Lanka.

Some of those on board today’s flight include people who have overstayed their visa and immigrants who have been convicted of a criminal offence. But it also contains dozens of ethnic Tamils who have had asylum bids turned down and are at risk of political persecution.

The Independent yesterday spoke to one Tamil man in his mid-twenties who is currently being held in Yarl’s Wood detention centre and is due to be on today’s flight. He said there were six people on his wing who were failed asylum-seekers who thought they would be at risk of torture or worse if they were returned. “Everybody is crying,” he said. “We all know about cases where people have been tortured or killed after they were returned. Why is the UK government doing this?”

The man, who requested his identity remain anonymous for fear of reprisals if he is removed, said he travelled from Jaffna to Britain in 2006 to escape the violence that had plagued northern Sri Lanka for three decades. He added that both he and some of his fellow deportees played prominent roles in recent protests in London against the Sri Lankan government.

“Whenever there were demonstrations the Sri Lankans would send people down to photograph the protesters,” he said. “They know exactly who we are. That’s what scares us.”

The UK Government insists that those who are forcibly removed are individually assessed to make sure that they are not at risk of torture on their return. But Human Rights Watch says they have at least three cases of Tamils who had been forcibly removed from the UK and subsequently tortured.

“There are likely to be many more cases, because these are the people who have managed to find their way from Sri Lanka to the UK, and that we have managed to interview,” said David Mepham, director of HRW UK.

“The UK should suspend the forcible removal of Tamil asylum-seekers pending a review of its processes for assessing asylum claims by Tamils.”

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “The UK has a proud record of offering sanctuary to those who need it, but people who do not have a genuine need for our protection must return to their home country.

“We only undertake returns to Sri Lanka when we are satisfied that the individual has no international protection needs. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled not all Tamil asylum-seekers require protection.”

Tamil returnees are raped, whipped and burned

Suthan knows all too well how hollow assurances that Tamils deported back to Sri Lanka are safe can be. He first fled to the UK five years ago after the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigations Department accused him of having links to the Tamil Tigers.

During his asylum application he presented medical evidence showing that he had been beaten with sticks and burned with cigarettes but his request was turned down.

Last year he was placed on a chartered flight and returned to Colombo. He was questioned on his arrival at the airport in the presence of an official from the British High Commission and was later released.

But the interrogations continued. After trying to return home he was picked up by security officials and claims he was tortured, including being whipped with electric flex, burned with cigarettes and having his head immersed in a bag filled with petrol.

After paying a bribe he escaped to the UK again and is now represented by Freedom from Torture, which has used medical evidence to document numerous instances of deportees being brutalised on their return to Sri Lanka.

“This situation has gone on long enough,” says Keith Best, Freedom from Torture’s chief executive. “Forcible returns of refused Tamil asylum-seekers must be halted until the UK Government is sure that they will not be delivering people into the hands of their torturers.”

Even the asylum panels have recognised that torture continues despite the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war. In late 2010 the Immigration and Asylum Chamber accepted that a Tamil woman who had been returned to Sri Lanka by the UK authorities was tortured and raped. A second 33-year-old man was also granted asylum last year after a tribunal accepted that he had been beaten and burned with hot metal sticks after his return.

Nonetheless the British Government has stepped up deportations.

Jerome Taylor

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Tamils deported to Sri Lanka from Britain being tortured, victim claims

The human spur to action on asylum

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deportation, destitute, detention, human rights abuses, persecution, rape, suicide, Torture

The human spur to action on asylum

Some clear facts and figures have been put into the public domain, thanks to a new report, Refused: the experiences of women denied asylum in the UK. In this research, 48% of women seeking asylum in Britain had been raped in their home countries. Half had experienced arrest or imprisonment. The vast majority were refused asylum in the UK. None felt able to consider returning to their home countries, as they were too scared of what would happen to them if they went back. Of those refused, more than half were made destitute – left with no means of support or housing. A quarter were detained. And the emotional impact of refusal was also revealed: more than half of women refused asylum had contemplated suicide.

These figures have received a certain amount of attention. But how urgently do figures communicate the need for change? Can you see the human faces behind the facts? This is always the problem when we talk about human rights abuses and persecution. Whether we are looking at massacres or mass rapes elsewhere, or homelessness or detention in this country, it is too easy for people to disappear behind statistics.

Campaigners are aware that we need to take our own sense of the individuality of the people we work with to a wider audience, but it often seems almost impossible to do so. In a world bludgeoned by fast, hard, visual news, how do we tell a story that makes others stop and listen?

Indeed, at a time when policy seems driven by reflecting and magnifying people’s reluctance to empathise with the most vulnerable, many people appear to almost take pride in their ability to keep the walls around their sense of wellbeing high and not to let the situation of the unemployed or the disabled or the asylum seeker knock a hole.

The problem doesn’t lie only with the indifference of some audiences; it’s also that these stories are by their very nature hard ones to tell. I co-wrote this particular report at the charity I run, Women for Refugee Women, so I know it was tough for each and every woman who participated in the research to communicate her experiences of persecution and her journey through the asylum process.

If we want to take those stories further, we are often pushing women beyond the limits of what they can bear. As one woman said to me when I asked her to talk to a journalist about her experiences of rape and torture in the Congo: “If I talk about it again I have to live it again, and again. It makes my head hurt and my heart burst. I can’t do it.” I felt ashamed of asking her to do so.

Yet it is only by communicating the individual story that we can begin to transform the rhetoric around us that condemns an asylum seeker to be seen as part of a flood rather than as an individual. I can tell you that there are fewer than 20,000 people coming to the UK to seek asylum each year, or that asylum makes up only an estimated 4% of net inward migration, but I wonder if you’d be convinced by those figures to join those campaigning for a more humane asylum process.

However, if I tell you that a woman I know called Lydia fled torture and rape in prison in Cameroon to come to this country to seek asylum, but was imprisoned here and threatened with deportation, you might let me talk to you for a bit longer. If I could bring you to meet Lydia herself, I would challenge you not to be moved by her situation.

Indeed, at the launch of the report in parliament, I saw the audience sit cool and calm through a presentation of the figures, but I saw them moved to tears when Lydia Besong got up to speak. Lydia is a writer who has fought a long – and only recently successful – public campaign for her right to be recognised as a refugee here, and the response she received made me remember why it is that, although we need the facts and the figures, it is human connection that creates the spur to action. Because it’s only if we can recognise that these women are just like you and I that we can understand the importance of building a more just asylum process in which they receive a fair hearing.

Indiana prosecuting Chinese woman for suicide attempt that killed her foetus

Tags

Bereavement, miscarriage, pregnancy, suicide

Indiana prosecuting Chinese woman for suicide attempt that killed her foetus

When her baby Angel died in her arms at 1.30am on 3 January 2011, Bei Bei Shuai was so distraught she was instantly transferred to the mental health wing of the Methodist hospital in Indianapolis. Grief stricken and under heavy sedation, she was unaware that within half an hour of her baby’s death a detective from the city’s homicide branch had arrived at the maternity ward and had begun asking questions.

While Shuai was embarking on a journey into bereavement that continues to this day, the Indianapolis authorities were also setting out, albeit along a very different path. On 14 March last year Shuai was arrested and taken into custody in the high-security Marion County prison, where she was held for the next 435 days, charged with murdering her foetus and attempted feticide. If convicted of the murder count she faces a sentence of 45 years to life.

Bei Bei Shuai is at the sharp end of the creeping criminalisation of pregnancy across America. Women who lose their unborn babies – whether in cases of maternal drug addiction or in Shuai’s case a failed suicide attempt – are increasingly finding themselves accused of murder.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Shuai told the Guardian she is determined to defend herself as she prepares for a murder trial scheduled for December. “I have a strong desire to stay in America,” she said, three days after she had been released from jail on $50,000 bail. “I want to stay and fight this case. I have the best legal team, and I’m not afraid anymore to face the charges.”

On 23 December 2010 Shuai became so depressed after she had been abandoned by her boyfriend – a married Chinese man who broke his promise to set up a family with her – that she decided to end her life. She consumed rat poison, and after confessing to friends was rushed to the Methodist hospital.

Doctors took steps to save her, but on 31 December there were signs that the baby, then at 33 weeks gestation, was in distress and a Caesarian was performed. On the second day of Angel’s life the baby was found to have a massive brain haemorrhage and on 2 January was taken off life support.

Shuai held Angel for five hours as the baby gradually faded and died. “Why do they want to take my baby away?” she kept asking, in between bouts of fainting. Shuai begged for her own life to be taken so that her child’s might be spared.

‘No one wins from the criminalisation of pregnant women’

“There is no doubt that Shuai was suffering from a severe mental illness,” her defence lawyer Linda Pence said. She first met the defendant when she was in the mental wing, a few days after Angel died. “I personally observed a very depressed woman, a grief-stricken individual.”

That is not how the prosecutor saw it. For the first time in Indiana‘s 196-year history, the state has applied felony charges against a woman that hold Shuai criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy. Earlier this month the Indiana supreme court declined to hear the case, rendering a 3 December murder trial almost inevitable.

Lawyers and women’s advocates in Indiana were astonished by the prosecution’s hard line. To attempt to take one’s own life is not a crime in Indiana, so the decision to charge a pregnant woman appeared to be creating a double standard.

The feticide law, introduced in Indiana in 1979, was designed with violent third parties in mind: abusive boyfriends or husbands who attacked their pregnant partners, causing them to lose their unborn babies. It was enhanced to carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in 2007 after a bank robbery in which a pregnant woman was shot in the stomach, killing her fetus but leaving her alive.

“From a legal standpoint, this case is absolutely frightening,” said Pence, who has set up a website and fighting fund to support Shuai’s defence.

Pence fears that Shuai’s prosecution could set a precedent that will catch others in its trap. In the future, could women who smoke or drink during pregnancy and suffer a miscarriage be prosecuted for murder, or women with HIV who pass it on to their child in the womb? “No one wins from the criminalisation of pregnant women – all this will do is persuade women to flee the state, avoid treatment or have an abortion,” Pence said.

‘I knew America as the best country in the world’

Shuai sees the threat now facing her from a different perspective – as the obliteration of her American dream. She was raised as a single child in Shanghai by parents she described as loving and caring. She graduated from Shanghai university as an accountant, worked for a year in a Chinese government department and then came to the US about 10 years ago as a legal immigrant with her then-husband, who was offered a job in Indianapolis as a mechanical engineer.

Shuai said she was delighted to come to the US. “I knew America as the best country in the world, with the best education system. People get more freedom. I really wanted to see what it was like.”

She found the initial arrival in her Indiana town – a tiny one compared to Shanghai – a bit of a culture shock, but over time she said she came to appreciate it more and more: “Seeing all the natural trees and flowers, the fresh air.”

She was full of dreams – the dream of continuing her studies, the dream of forming her own family, of owning a house and car. “Everybody tells me that they have their American dream, trying to make their life better. People tell me that all the time, and I am the same, I am one of them,” she said.

The dreams didn’t work out so easily. She couldn’t afford to go back to college, so instead studied under her own steam using the local library. Her marriage collapsed, and then when she did finally become pregnant it was with a married man.

When he abandoned her, he left Shuai on her hands and knees in a parking lot as he drove away.

Shuai is not allowed to discuss the events that led up to her suicide attempt, as that might prejudice her trial. But she can talk about the deep sense of shame she felt when she was arrested for killing her foetus.

“I remember the day I had to turn myself in. I felt hopeless and ashamed, for myself and my parents. I had never worn handcuffs before – when they put the cuffs on me it chilled me to my bones.”

Now released, her hands are free. But she is forced to wear a GPS ankle bracelet that is causing her feet to swell.

Shuai’s lawyers wonder whether it is coincidental that such an aggressive application of a law originally designed to protect pregnant women against violent men should first be applied against a woman who is Chinese. The question is all the more pertinent given the current spat between the US and Chinese governments over the treatment of the blind dissident Chen Guangcheng.

Lynn Paltrow, head of National Advocates for Pregnant Women that is co-counsel in Shuai’s defence, said: “It’s an irony that the US has paid such close attention to violations of human rights in China while at the same time Indiana has absolutely deprived a woman who is a legal immigrant from China of her constitutional human rights.”

Prosecution is determined to push on

The only hope for Shuai to avoid a murder trial is if the prosecutor, Terry Curry, decides to drop the charges. There is little chance of that, given his firm belief that he is following the correct path.

“It’s my job to enforce the criminal code as enacted by our legislature and that’s what our legislature has determined,” he said. Curry pointed to a suicide note that Shuai left the former boyfriend in which she wrote that she was “taking this baby with me”.

“What we allege is that her actions were directed specifically at the unborn child. It’s not that she was trying to take her own life, it was that she was trying to take the life of her foetus,” Curry said.

Curry’s determination to press ahead to trial is matched by Shuai’s determination to fight on. During her year in prison, she has improved her English language skills and now speaks fluently without a translator. Though there were dark times inside, including anxiety attacks and moments of despair, she said she has emerged stronger for it.

“It was a really bad experience. I thought nobody would care about me anymore, that I was a worthless person with no future,” she said. “But I learned a great deal. I learned that my life wasn’t the worst as I thought it was. Everything that has happened has made me think that I am so blessed. I have a second family here, and that gives me hope.”

Shuai kept the truth about her suicide attempt and prosecution for murder from her mother back in Shanghai for almost a year. But a couple of months ago, with the help of her lawyer, she finally confessed.

“My mother was so wonderful and supportive. She told me you don’t need to care about other people’s judgment, as she knew that was what hurt me most. There’s a Chinese saying: ‘A people’s mouth can be sharper than a knife.'”

Despite her ordeal, Shuai insists she remains dogged in her intention to make a life for herself in America, a country that she still regards as the greatest on Earth. But in the last analysis her decision to stay and protest her innocence is made on behalf of only one person.

“I want to prove to my daughter that her mother is not a murderer, and that she has been loved.”

Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict

Tags

Bosnia, Genocide, rape, Rwanda, Sexual Violence, Torture, War Crimes

William Hague: Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict

When we think of armed conflicts, we think of battlefields, of soldiers in arms, of trenches and tanks. But wars tragically are also about civilians, particularly women and children, caught on the margins of the battlefield yet at the centre of warfare.

The grave and regrettable reality is that rape and other forms of sexual violence have been inflicted upon women as weapons of war in battlefields the world over. In Rwanda alone, it is estimated that over 300,000 women were raped during the 100 day Genocide. In Darfur, Liberia and the DRC levels of sexual violence have been extremely high too, and horrific reports are emerging of abuses in Syria.

The human cost of these crimes was brought home to me most starkly when I met women in refugee camps in Darfur who had been raped when collecting firewood to cook for their children, and survivors of Srebrenica – the worst atrocity on European soil since the end of the Second World War.

Such crimes, especially if they are not addressed or punished, affect the victims and their families as well as their communities for years to come. This feeds anger, distrust and continuous cycles of conflict. It creates long lasting enmity between peoples, and makes it hard to bring peace. Degrading the dignity of women in such a way reduces their essential role and crucial ability to help build peace and holds back development.

It is the responsibility and duty of all states to take measures necessary to put an end to impunity and prosecute those responsible. There is a strong international consensus that more needs to be done. This has been reflected in the valiant work that the UN and its agencies numerous NGOs and frontline organisations have undertaken over the last decade. But more often than not, the perpetrators of sexual and gender based committed crime in conflict or post conflict situations still get away with it. Shockingly, they are neither held to account nor deterred.

As of today there have been only around 30 convictions for up to 50,000 rapes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This kind of record sends a clear message to the past and to would-be perpetrators to be: if you commit sexual crimes in conflict you are likely to get away with it.

As a community of nations we will not succeed in preventing conflict and building sustainable peace unless we give this issue the centrality it deserves; alongside the empowerment and participation of women at every level in all societies.

Our government is determined to bring new energy and leadership to this task. We want to use Britain’s influence and diplomatic capability to rally effective international action, to help find practical ways to ensure that survivors feel confident to speak out, and regain the dignity, rights, and restitution that is their due. Only a significant increase in the number of successful prosecutions will erode and eventually demolish the culture of impunity.

A key vehicle for prosecution is strengthening national and international capability to gather and preserve evidence, on a systematic basis, in a way that means such evidence is admissible in courts, and that allows victims to speak out and demonstrate the proof of their claims.

Above all, it is essential to ensure that the survivors have access to justice and are treated with dignity throughout the justice process.

We know that the problem is complex and that there is no single solution. We know that legal action to bring perpetrators to justice is only one avenue. That, however, should not discourage us. We are determined to act.

We will form a new team of UK experts to help deal with this problem by helping states, civil society and communities to build their capacity to prevent and respond to sexual and gender based violence, by increasing the ability of national governments, law enforcement agencies, judiciaries, human rights defenders and civil society to hold perpetrators to account.

We will seek to identify those countries and places at most risk of sexual and gender based violence. We want to strengthen our support for international efforts to build up a system of early warning indicators with the UN and other like-minded partners. We will draw on and seek to develop the UK’s own early warning analysis to support this.

And we will use Britain’s Presidency of the G8, starting on 1 January 2013, to highlight the need for stronger international action to deter and prevent sexual violence in conflict. We will use these crucial seven months before our Presidency to build real momentum around this initiative and to encourage other countries to work with us on this vital issue.

Five-year-olds now worry about body image

Tags

body dysmorphic disorder, Bullying, cosmetic surgery, Eating Disorders, health problems, Self-esteem

Five-year-olds now worry about body image

More than half the British public suffers from a negative body image, an inquiry by MPs has heard.

The problem is so acute that girls as young as five now worry about their size and appearance, with children in danger of picking up their parents’ body-related anxieties, their report said.

Cosmetic surgery rates have increased by nearly 20% since 2008 and the rise was said to be fuelled by advertising and “irresponsible” marketing ploys, the cross-party group of MPs was told.

According to Reflections on Body Image, co-authored by the MPs and health and education charity Central YMCA, negative body image was seen as an underlying cause of health and relationship problems, a key contributor to low self-esteem and a major barrier to participation in school and progression at work.

Appearance is also the greatest cause of bullying in schools, evidence suggested.

The report, published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Body Image after a three-month public inquiry, identified a growing amount of evidence that body image dissatisfaction was on the increase, with the issue seen to be one affecting all of society regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, body size or shape.

Children and adolescents were seen to be more vulnerable to body image concerns however.

Around half of girls and up to one third of boys have dieted to lose weight and children and young people with body image dissatisfaction were less likely to engage in learning and participation in school, the report said.

Parents were identified as one of the main influences on children but by secondary school age, the peer group was seen to become a more important influence.

The inquiry heard that health issues attributed to excess body weight may be overstated meanwhile because body mass index, the measure commonly used, was seen to be an inaccurate way of classifying all individuals and their health risks.

And although being overweight or obese was associated with a range of health conditions, the inquiry received evidence challenging the notion that weight always entailed poor health.

The diet industry acknowledged the public had “unrealistic expectations” about weight loss, while critics argued there was no evidence diets work in the long term.

The inquiry, which took evidence from academics, the public, industry, charities and other experts, heard that:

:: Getting rid of dieting could wipe out 70% of eating disorders;

:: More than 95% of dieters regain the weight they lost;

:: 1.6 million people in the UK suffer eating disorders;

:: Up to one in five cosmetic surgery patients could suffer from body dysmorphic disorder;

:: One in three men would sacrifice a year of life to achieve their ideal body;

:: One in five people have been victimised because of their weight;

The report made a series of recommendations targeted at policy-makers, healthcare professionals, industry and the education sector designed to change public perceptions, attitudes and behavioural patterns.

These include compulsory body image and self-esteem lessons for primary and secondary schools, getting advertisers to commit to running campaigns that reflect consumer desire for “authenticity and diversity”, and reframing public health messages in “weight-neutral” language.

It also called for a review of broadcast and editorial codes on reporting body-related issues, a review of the evidence base to support the long term efficacy and safety of diets and a separate code of regulations governing cosmetic surgery advertising.

Patients should be screened before undergoing cosmetic surgery and a review should be carried out into whether the Equality Act ought to be amended to include appearance-related discrimination, the recommendations said.

Central YMCA will launch a campaign on the issues in the autumn after consulting the public beforehand.

APPG chairwoman Jo Swinson MP said: “Body image dissatisfaction in the UK has reached an all-time high and the pressure to conform to an unattainable body ideal is wreaking havoc on the self-esteem of many people.”

Central YMCA chief executive Rosi Prescott branded the report’s findings shocking.

“It’s clear that there’s something seriously wrong in society when children as a young as five are worrying about their appearance, based on the messages they are seeing all around them,” she said.

“Body image has become more important in our culture than health, and children are mimicking their parents’ concerns about appearance.

“We all have a responsibility to act now to bring about the attitudinal and behavioural change that’s necessary to prevent damage to future generations.”

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons agreed a separate code of regulations should be drawn up governing cosmetic surgery advertising and called for an outright ban on adverts of this type in public places like billboards and public transport.

BAAPS also announced it was funding long-term research into psychological assessment of patients.

:: The finding that more than half of people have a negative body image comes from a study by the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England, to be published in full later this year.

UK to deploy rape investigation squad to war zones

Tags

rape, Sexual Violence, War Crimes

UK to deploy rape investigation squad to war zones

The UK is setting up a special rapid deployment unit to collect evidence on mass rape used as a weapon during global conflicts, as part of a broader initiative to be launched on Tuesday to combat sexual war crimes of the kind seen in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, central Africa, and now in Syria.

The team of experts being created by the Foreign Office will be drawn from a pool of British police, forensic experts, doctors, psychologists and lawyers and is expected to be in action by the end of this year, ready to be sent to war zones at short notice wherever there are signs of sexual abuse on a large scale. One of their first destinations could well be Syria where William Hague, the foreign secretary, said there were “horrifying reports” of rape beginning to emerge.

“Despite the valiant efforts of many individuals and organisations, the perpetrators of the worst sexual crimes generally go unpunished,” Hague will say at the launch of the initiative, according to early extracts of his speech released by the Foreign Office. “We want to use Britain’s influence and diplomatic capability to rally effective international action.”

The team will initially be funded out of a £20m urgent action fund, part of UK contingency spending set aside for helping mitigate the impact of global conflicts. The UK also intends to use its presidency of the G8 in 2013 to persuade other countries and organisations to put more resources into the fight against rape worldwide.

Angelina Jolie will be also be speaking at the launch at the Foreign Office, where there will be an advance UK screening of her film about the rape camps in the Bosnia war, In the Land of Blood and Honey. Up to 50,000 women are estimated to have been raped during the 1992-1995 conflict, but there have been only 30 prosecutions specifically for sex war crimes.

During the Rwanda genocide, the UN estimates that at least 250,000 women were raped. More than 50,000 were raped in the conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, while almost half of all Liberian women have reported being the victim of at least one act of physical or sexual violence by a soldier or paramilitary fighter.

Two years ago the UN appointed a special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallstrom, who named the worst offenders in her report to the security council in February, including the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, various militias in Ivory Coast, and the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Wallstrom also gave examples of how sexual violence had undermined peace-building efforts in post-war zones such as Chad, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and Bosnia, and during elections or political strife in Egypt, Guinee Kenya and Syria.

“Conflict-related sexual violence is not specific to one country or continent: it is a global risk, Wallstrom said. “Wars have entered the marketplaces where women trade; they follow children en route to school; and haunt the prison cells where political activists are detained.”

British officials said the aim of the UK initiative was to support the work of Wallstrom’s offices and local law enforcement, while allowing the UK to act on its own where it believes it can offer specific expertise in collecting forensic evidence, victim testimonies and eye-witness statements of a standard that would be admissible in court.

“The UN do a good job on this, but the thing about these horrific crimes is that you can always do more,” a British official said.

Hague will say: “We want to help find practical ways to ensure that survivors feel confident to speak out, and regain the dignity, rights, and restitution that is their due. And we want to see a significant increase in the number of successful prosecutions so that we erode and eventually demolish the culture of impunity.”

Shuna Kennedy, the head of a London-based advocacy group, Womankind Worldwide, gave the Hague initiative a guarded welcome last night, warning of the dangers of duplication of effort.

“While we’re pleased to see the foreign office taking steps to tackle the issue of sexual violence in conflict, an important link in the chain seems to be missing,” Kennedy said. “We are not starting from scratch, so the proposal for a squad of experts to gather evidence, provide training and support to human rights defenders in fragile states, whilst welcome, will waste resources if it fails to recognise and build on the expertise and experience already available in women’s rights organisations.”

Elderly People In Britain Lonelier Than In Other European Countries, Study Finds

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elderly, isolation, loneliness

Elderly People In Britain Lonelier Than In Other European Countries, Study Finds

Elderly people in Britain are lonelier and poorer that those in similar European countries, international research suggests.

They are also more concerned about age discrimination than some of their European neighbours and feel more negative towards young people, a Demos report has found.

More over-65s in this country suffer life-limiting illnesses than in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, it showed.

The UK was graded third among the four countries in its overall performance across a range of areas considered in the report prepared for older people’s charity WRVS.

One reason for the sense of solitude felt by Britain’s elderly may be long-term underinvestment by local authorities in services that reduce isolation and loneliness, it was argued.

The country’s poor score in elderly people’s health might reflect particularly unhealthy lifestyles in the UK, with higher rates of alcohol consumption and obesity than in the other three countries, the Ageing Across Europe report suggested.

By contrast, in Sweden, where older people are the healthiest of those across the four countries, public policy focuses on improving health earlier on in life to ensure a healthier old age.

Of the four countries, Britain’s over-65s were found to face the highest chance of living in poverty, with a fifth of pensioners at risk in 2010, compared to only six per cent of pensioners at risk of poverty in the Netherlands.

Older women in the UK were more concerned about age discrimination than older men, the study found.

WRVS said the findings should act as a wake-up call.  Chief executive David McCullough said: “The treatment of older people in this country needs to be addressed and we must learn from our EU partners.

“They have proved it is possible to tackle some of these issues by taking advantage of volunteers to provide older people with more social contact and better links to their communities.

“This, in turn, will have a knock-on beneficial impact on their health.”

The study recommended more volunteering to provide peer support to older people and boost their social life, and annual government reports on Britain’s older population measuring progress against other European Union countries.

The UK should also explore what else can be done to encourage intergenerational mingling, it suggested.

The Government described loneliness as one of society’s biggest challenges.

Care Services Minister Paul Burstow said: “Lack of day-to-day contact can have a huge impact on people’s health.

“The Government is working with the Campaign to End Loneliness to raise awareness about how important even a simple phone call or visit can be to someone’s health.

“We will be setting out in our care and support White Paper how we will work with the voluntary sector, businesses, local communities and others to put tackling loneliness on the agenda.”

Listen up… and make someone’s day

Listen up… and make someone’s day

What small act of kindness would brighten up your day? A new YouGov poll, published by the Samaritans, discovered that 44 per cent of people across the nation say having someone listen to them would make them feel better.

Apparently we’re all so self-involved, we barely have time to pay attention to what is going on in friends’ and colleagues’ lives. It is little wonder that social networking, which allows us to pour out drivel about ourselves to whoever is around to catch it, is thriving.

If you can’t get someone you know to hear about last night’s date, dinner or dream, you may as well tell a bunch of mild acquaintances; strangers, even. Other favoured answers were getting a hug and being complimented. I presume receiving cash was not one of the options.

Four in 10 young women sexually harassed in public spaces, survey finds

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sexual harassment

Four in 10 young women sexually harassed in public spaces, survey finds

Sexual harassment is a persistent and dangerous problem on Britain’s streets, women’s charities have warned, as a poll reveals that more than four in 10 young women were sexually harassed in the capital over the last year.

A YouGov survey of 1,047 Londoners commissioned by End Violence Against Women Coalition (Evaw) found that 43% of women aged between 18 and 34 had experienced sexual harassment in public spaces in the last year.

Despite a growing intolerance of unwanted sexual attention, harassment was still very common and made women feel unsafe particularly when travelling alone, said Holly Dustin, director of Evaw.

“Sexual harassment is so ingrained that we barely notice it, but when you start talking to women almost every one has a horrible story to tell: it’s time for society to stand up and put a stop to it.”

Schoolchildren as young as 12 were being targeted, she said, with previous research for the group revealing that one in three girls in UK schools had experienced unwanted sexual contact.

Dismissing sexual harassment – from unwanted comments on the street about appearance to groping – as “harmless fun” or complimentary was dangerous, she added.

“Sexual harassment has a real impact on women’s lives, whether it is changing their behaviour or whether they feel safe on the streets,” she said.

“It feeds into a fear of rape and sexual violence and has a harmful effect on broader issues of equality.”

The poll also found 31% of women aged 18 to 24 experienced unwanted sexual attention on public transport and 21% of 25- to 34-year-olds. Overall, 5% of the women surveyed had experienced unwanted sexual contact on public transport.

Fiona Elvines, of South London Rape Crisis, said it was rare to meet a woman who had not suffered street harassment. “Women manage this harassment every day, in their routines and daily decisions – but it has an impact on their self-esteem and body image,” she said. “Women are saying that there are consequences to this, and it’s time to start listening to them.”

In a recent case, Lee Read, 23, was jailed for 28 months after groping four women and an 11-year-old girl. He put his coat over his lap before grabbing women’s legs. In the most serious attack, he grabbed the leg of a woman in her early 20s on the London underground, before forcibly grabbing her between the legs.

Campaigners say women globally are increasingly challenging unwanted sexual attention, using social media to bring harassers to account. Vicky Simister, the founding director of Ash – the UK Anti Street Harassment Campaign, said the issue was not restricted to London and called for a national survey. Authorities could take steps to make a significant difference to women’s safety, she added.

“Local councils and the police need to convey a strong message that this behaviour will not be tolerated by perpetrators. A good example was the ‘Flirt/Harass: Real Men Know the Difference’ poster campaign by Lambeth council in partnership with the Metropolitan police, which conveyed a no-tolerance message.”

Hollaback – a website where women who have received unwanted sexual attention or harassment can share stories or photographs of their harassers – has activists in 50 cities in 17 countries around the world.

“Whether it is unwanted sleazy comments or violent sexual assault, street harassment is an epidemic in London,” said Byrony Beynon, a co-director of Hollaback London. “But there is definitely a groundswell of people saying this is not on, it is not acceptable. Women are taking back the power they felt was taken away from them in that moment of harassment.”

The organisations are calling for a public awareness campaign on transport networks, similar to signs that discourage passengers from eating smelly food or putting feet on seats. “We are asking for training for transport staff to help them deal with these incidents and serious police intervention when it is needed,” said Dustin of Evaw. “But we are also asking for the wider community to recognise this is not acceptable and speak out against it when they see it happening.”