Mandy Sanghera | |
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| Occupation | Human rights activist |
Mandy Sanghera is an international human rights activist. Since 1990, she has been supporting victims and survivors of honour-based violence and cultural abuse such as female genital mutilation, forced marriages, [1] faith-based abuse, and witchcraft. [2] [3]
As a human rights activist, Sanghera has worked in various areas focusing on cultural abuse and crimes. [4] [5] She has been involved in documentaries on themes such as witchcraft, forced marriages, incest, female genital mutilation, and “honour” killings. [6] [7] [8]
Sanghera was involved in writing the guidelines on disability and HBV[ clarification needed ] for the Forced Marriages Unit. Until 2018, she worked with the European Parliament on forced marriages, preparing a report based on the information from the 28 European Union Member States and the selected associated countries, and will be involved in the Goddard Child Abuse Inquiry. [6] Sanghera is an ambassador and adviser for several charities and social groups such as Psychreg, [9] and has supported over 200 disabled adults who have been forced into marriage. [10] She was one of a panel of speakers at the United States House of Representatives and spoke about honour-based violence and cultural abuse. [11] Sanghera was on the team that worked on the "My Marriage My Choice" project at the University of Nottingham. [12]
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender.
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. 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.
Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general, Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).
The Tahirih Justice Center, or Tahirih, is a national charitable non-governmental organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, United States, that aims to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence and persecution. Tahirih's holistic model combines free legal services and social services case management with public policy advocacy, training and education.
International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.
The status and social roles of women in Mali have been formed by the complex interplay of a variety of traditions in ethnic communities, the rise and fall of the great Sahelien states, French colonial rule, independence, urbanisation, and postcolonial conflict and progress. Forming just less than half Mali's population, Malian women have sometimes been the center of matrilineal societies, but have always been crucial to the economic and social structure of this largely rural, agricultural society.
Jasvinder Sanghera, is a British author and campaigner against forced marriages and abuse.
Women in Yemen have historically been placed at a disadvantage due to their gender, with a highly patriarchal society. Although the government of Yemen has made efforts that will improve the rights of women in Yemen, many cultural and religious norms, along with poor enforcement of this legislation from the Yemeni government, have prevented Yemeni women from having equal rights to men.
The AHA Foundation is a nonprofit organization for the defense of women's rights. It was founded by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in 2007 and is based in New York City. Originally formed to support Muslim dissidents who had suffered for their religious or political beliefs, the organization's scope was broadened September 2008 to focus on women's rights. The goal of the AHA Foundation is to combat crimes against women and girls such as child marriage, forced marriages, female genital mutilation and honor killings. Its key activities include education, outreach and legislative advocacy.
The status of women in Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century is affected by many factors: wars, sectarian religious debates concerning Islamic law and Iraq's Constitution, cultural traditions, and modern secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are widowed as a result of a series of wars and internal conflicts. Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation, while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life, and to curtail abusive traditional practices such as honor killings and forced marriages.
Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.
Honor Diaries is a 2013 documentary film produced by the Clarion Project, whose films have been criticized by some for allegedly falsifying information and described as anti-Muslim propaganda. Honor Diaries explores violence against women in honor-based societies, with particular focus on female genital mutilation (FGM), violence against women and honor killings and forced marriage, and lack of access to education.
Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia of women and girls living in the UK. According to Equality Now and City University London, an estimated 103,000 women and girls aged 15–49 were thought to be living with female genital mutilation (FGM) in England and Wales as of 2011.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as Female circumcision or Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in Nigeria accounts for the most female genital cutting/mutilation (FGM/C) cases worldwide. The practice is customarily a family tradition that the young female of the age 0-15 would experience. It is a procedure that involves partial or completely removing the vulva or other injury to the female genital organs whenever for non-medical reasons.
Hortense Lougué is a Woman Human Rights Defender and the Executive Director of the Association of Support and Awakening Pugsada (ADEP), a non-governmental organisation that focuses on improving the legal, and socio-economic status of women and girls in Burkina Faso. She works extensively with young girls and women who have been forced into marriage, are victims of gender violence or have suffered female genital mutilation. Having been a volunteer in the Pugsada association, she became the coordinator and chief executive when the founder took over international duties in 2008. Her drive to do this originated from her experience of inequality and injustice.
Naana Otoo-Oyortey is an Ghanaian social activist, the executive director of the Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development.
Sara Mohammad is an Iraqi Kurdish-born Swedish human rights activist and pharmacist. She claimed asylum in Sweden as a quota refugee in 1993 after fleeing from her child marriage a day before the wedding. Her brother had threatened to shoot her, holding a Kalashnikov rifle to her head. After Fadime Şahindal was murdered in Uppsala in 2002, Mohammad founded Gapf, an organization which campaigns against honour killing.
Rugiatu Turay is a Sierra Leonean women's rights activist. who is a staunch campaigner against female genital mutilation. She is the founder of The Amazonian Initiative Movement, a nonprofit organization with the main objective of eliminating the cultural practice of female genital mutilation in West Africa.
Honor-related violence in Sweden first received public attention in Sweden due to the honor killings of Sara Abed Ali in 1996, Pela Atroshi in 1999 and Fadime Sahindal in 2002. Honor related violence includes forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and other forms of coercion. According to the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society in 2009, about 70 thousand women and men reported pressure to marry against their will. In 2019, the Swedish Police Authority started to specifically track honor-related crimes, and by November 2021, 4500 suspected honor-related crimes had been reported.