Child marriage is a marriage or domestic partnership, formal or informal, between a child and an adult, or between a child and another child.
Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against women or girls specifically because they are female, and can take many forms.
Equality Now is a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to advocate for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls. Equality Now works through public policy channels to create a just world for women and girls. Through a combination of regional partnerships, community mobilization and legal advocacy the organization works to encourage governments to adopt, improve and enforce laws that protect and promote women and girls' rights around the world.
Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.
Sexual violence refers to a range of completed or attempted sexual acts in which the affected party does not or is unable to consent. Theories on the causes of sexual violence are numerous and have come out of many different disciplines, such as women's studies, public health, and criminal justice. Proposed causes include military conquest, socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, traits, ethical standards, laws, and evolutionary pressures. Most of the research on the causes of sexual violence has focused on male offenders.
Since the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia and protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began, Tunisian women have played an unprecedented part in the protests. Habib Bourguiba began instituting secular freedoms for women in 1956, such as access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and certain job opportunities. Women in Tunisia enjoy certain freedoms and rights that are denied to women in neighboring countries, although the social norms have shifted since 2011.
On 10 March 2012, Amina El Filali (1996–2012), a 16-year-old girl from Larache, Morocco, committed suicide by taking rat poison, after she was forced by her family to marry a man who had raped her when she was 15. According to Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, the rapist was allowed to avoid prosecution by marrying his victim. This incident drew much attention to Moroccan law, and many people expressed a desire to have the law changed. Local human rights groups also called for the repeal of Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, which de-criminalises a rape if the rapist later marries their victim. Two years after the suicide, the parliament decided to modify Article 475; it was edited in 2014.
My Makhzen and Me is a 2012 documentary Moroccan film directed, produced and shot by Nadir Bouhmouch. The documentary was the first of its kind in Morocco, an unprecedented and direct critique of the Moroccan Makhzen, it portrayed the struggle of the pro-democracy February 20 youth Movement and made extensive use of footage shot by activists on telephones or home video cameras showing police violence at the demonstrations held throughout 2011 and early 2012.
The history of women in Morocco includes their lives from before, during, and after the arrival of Islam in the northwestern African country of Morocco.
Rape is a major issue in Afghanistan. A number of human rights organizations have criticized the country's rape laws and their enforcement.
India's Daughter is a documentary film directed by Leslee Udwin and is part of the BBC's ongoing Storyville series. The film is based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of 23-year-old "Nirbhaya", who was a physiotherapy student. The documentary explores the events of the night of 16 December 2012, the protests which were sparked both nationally and internationally as a result of the assault, and the lives of the men before they committed the attack. The film is told through the use of reconstructed footage and interviews with those involved in the case, including the defence lawyers, psychiatrists, and one of the rapists.
After a sexual assault or rape, victims are often subjected to scrutiny and, in some cases, mistreatment. Victims undergo medical examinations and are interviewed by police. If there is a criminal trial, victims suffer a loss of privacy, and their credibility may be challenged. Victims may also become the target of slut-shaming, abuse, social stigmatization, sexual slurs and cyberbullying. These factors, contributing to a rape culture, are among some of the reasons that may contribute up to 80% of all rapes going unreported in the U.S, according to a 2016 study done by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Campaign against the Lebanese rape-marriage law Article 522, officially known as "A White Dress Doesn't Cover the Rape", was launched by the Lebanese non-governmental organization Abaad MENA in December 2016. Its aim was to abolish Article 522 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which allows a man to avoid punishment for rape if he produces a valid marriage contract with the victim. The campaign included street protests, the hashtag #Undress522 in social media, and a video of a raped women covered in bruises turned into a bride.
A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law, or rape-marriage law is a rule of rape law in a jurisdiction under which a man who commits rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or other similar act is exonerated if he marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for the accused to avoid prosecution or punishment.
Polly Harrar is a British women's rights activist who assists women who have been the victims of forced marriage and honour crimes. She is the founder of the Sharan Project, a member of the Forced Marriage Unit Partnership Board, and a partner of Comic Relief's Our Girl campaign.
Amina Lahbabi-Peters, née Amina Lahbabi is a Moroccan interpreter and translator, who has gone on to become a branding, marketing and Communication for Development specialist.
475: Break the Silence, is a 2013 Moroccan documentary short film directed by Hind Bensari. The film focused on the life of Amina Fillali, a 16-year-old girl from a small town in Morocco. She committed suicide by taking rat poison after she married the man who raped her. It was premiered at International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in 2014.
Les griffes du passé is a 2014 film directed by Abdelkrim Derkaoui. The film is inspired by two real events. The first is that of Amina Filali who committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist. The second is that of a woman who was raped and then sentenced to seven years in prison after mutilating her rapist's genitals.
Amina is the loose transcription of two different Arabic female given names:
