Legislator Attacked by Colleagues. [Afghanistan] An outspoken female legislator was physically and verbally attacked by her colleagues after saying on the parliament floor that some of Afghanistan's mujahedeen leaders were criminals who shouldn't now be lawmakers, officials said Monday. Malalai Joya, who apparently was unhurt, said several female lawmakers hit her with empty plastic water bottles and male lawmakers made death threats and lobbed insults at her after her speech on Sunday. One lawmaker had her hair pulled during the scuffle, another official said. Moderate lawmakers in the 249-member lower house formed a circle around Joya to protect her, she and other lawmakers said. "I said there are two kinds of mujahedeen in Afghanistan. One kind fought for independence, which I respect, but the other kind destroyed the country and killed 60,000 people," Joya told The Associated Press. Shukari Barikzai, another female lawmaker, said Joya's speech accusing some lawmakers of being warlords was calm and dispassionate, but she was attacked anyway. She said one female lawmaker pulled the hair of a female colleague protecting Joya.

Female Lawmaker Faces Death Threat. [Aghanistan] A young female Afghan lawmaker who once called powerful tribal leaders "criminals" and complained publicly last week there are warlords among parliament members now sleeps in a different house every night after a fresh influx of death threats. Malalai Joya, 28, says her mission is to improve women's rights and expose criminal lawmakers in Afghanistan. She says she will continue to speak out despite any danger. Joya received worldwide attention after first making comments against former warlords at Afghanistan's constitutional council in December 2003. Last week, she was given her first extended chance to speak in parliament since being elected in October, she said. "I thought it's good to expose warlords, even in the national house," the 28-year-old lawmaker told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday. "When I came into parliament they understood I was this person that I was two years before."

21 Rajasthan Doctors Booked for Female Foeticide. [India] The Rajasthan government has filed police complaints against 21 doctors alleged to have been involved in the practice of female foeticide. The director of family welfare, acting on a direction from Health Minister Digamber Singh, filed complaints against the doctors with the Ashok Nagar police station of the city late Sunday. "We have filed FIRs (first information reports) against 21 doctors working in various government and private hospitals for violating the Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act," a health and family welfare department official told IANS here Monday. "A detailed probe would be conducted in the case and all the doctors would be punished if found guilty. Female foeticide is a crime and the government plans to take effective measures to stop it in the state," Singh said. The matter had come to light after a private TV news network exposed the doctors running a racket of female foeticide a few weeks ago.

Hindu Widow Film Enrages Fundamentalists. [India] India has made headlines as an emerging superpower, a land of high-tech multimillionaires and a vast new market for American goods. But there is another India too, and it is not just the one of villages and ox carts that has always been best known in the West. This is the disturbing India of the Hindu widow, a woman traditionally shunned as bad luck and forced to live in destitution on the edge of society. Her husband's death is considered her fault, and she has to shave her head, shun hot food and sweets and never remarry. In the pre-independence India of the 1930's, the tradition applied even to child brides of 5 or 6 who had been betrothed for the future by their families but had never laid eyes on their husbands. Into this milieu now comes the director Deepa Mehta with "Water," a lush new film that opened on Friday, about Chuyia, an 8-year-old widow in the India of 1938. She has barely met her husband but is banished by her parents to a decrepit widows' house on the edge of the Ganges. Chuyia is left there sobbing, in one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the film, but she insists her parents will soon return for her. Even as it becomes clear that they won't, Chuyia's spirited, rebellious streak shines through, and she begins to change the way the other widows in the house view the world, as the independence movement of Mahatma Gandhi swirls around them. Chuyia has a particularly powerful effect on two people: Shakuntula, who begins to question a Hindu faith that subjects women who have lost husbands to such degrading lives, and Kalyani, a beautiful young widow who has been forced into prostitution by the head of the widow house. As the film unfolds, Kalyani ignores the taboos to fall tragically in love with a handsome young Gandhi nationalist. The sorrowful film is nonetheless a triumph of conscience over blind faith, and a powerful message about how much, and how little, has changed in India. "I think it's slightly naïve for me to think that films make a difference," Mehta, the director, said in a telephone interview from Toronto, where she lives half the year, when she is not in New Delhi. "But what it can do is start a dialogue and provoke discussion." The film has provoked far more than that. In January 2000 Mehta was forced to shut down production of "Water" in Varanasi, one of India's holy cities on the banks of the Ganges, after Hindu nationalists protested that the film was anti-Hindu. Some 500 demonstrators took to the streets, ransacked the set and burned Mehta in effigy. She appealed to the state government for help, but fearing more violence, local officials asked the film crew to leave. Today there are about 33 million widows in India, according to the 2001 census, and many in the rural areas are still treated like the outcasts in the film.

Stolen Away. [Iraq ] The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her. Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring at a floor strewn with empty whiskey bottles, the orphan listened as Sa'ad described the life awaiting her: a beautiful home, expensive clothes, parties with pop stars. Why, she'd be joining two other very happy teenage Iraqi girls living with Sa'ad in his harem. Safah knew that she was running out of time. A fake passport with her photo and assumed name had already been forged for her. But even if she escaped, she had no family who would take her in. She was even likely to end up in prison. What was she to do? afah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No one knows how many young women have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue. The collapse of law and order and the absence of a stable government have allowed criminal gangs, alongside terrorists, to run amuck. Meanwhile, some aid workers say, bureaucrats in the ministries have either paralyzed with red tape or frozen the assets of charities that might have provided refuge for these girls. As a result, sex trafficking has been allowed to fester unchecked.

King Cautions Against Pictures of Women. [Saudi Arabia] Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (AHN) - According to local newspapers, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, under pressure from Islamists to curb reforms, has warned local media against showing pictures of Saudi women. Breaking with tradition, newspapers have more frequently begun printing photographs of Saudi women beside stories, usually with hair covered but faces showing, which many Wahhabi Islamists consider morally wrong. They have also printed debate about other issues concerning women, such as whether bans on women driving and working in some retail stores could be reversed, issues which have raised the ire of many religious conservatives. Newspapers quoted the King asking them to "go easy on such things" and saying, "There are photographs published in some newspapers...and one needs to think if he would want his daughter, sister or wife to appear like that. Of course, no one would."

Women Hold the Key to Prosperity or Failure. [Saudi Arabia] In many ways, women in Saudi Arabia can be their own worst enemies when it comes to issues regarding their changing role in society. A look at the economic statistics and the important role that women have to play for this society to progress makes many of the challenges obvious, but the obeisance many women pay to the status quo and long-standing cultural traditions exact a price on the pace of progress in Saudi Arabia and the acceptance of a new reality that we can embrace and watch our children flourish or reject and watch both our society and standard of living crumble. Ironically, in the worst-case scenario for the future, we would struggle even to feed or clothe our children, let alone defend our culture or traditions. It is a harsh appraisal and one that I might not have seen fit to voice had I not been asked to present a paper regarding the role of women in the media to inform society about the vision for Saudi women in the future at the first-ever Forum for Women in Media held April 16 in Riyadh. Held under the patronage of Princess Adelah bint Abdullah, the forum addressed issues concerning women in media.

Saudi Women Shy Away From Exercise. [Saudi Arabia] Though there are no laws against women exercising outside their homes, Saudi women, influenced by conservative society and clerics, do not join aerobics classes and are never seen using walking trails. Two third of Saudi women rarely exercise and very few encourage their daughters to attend physical education classes. Hotel gyms and pools are off-limits to women. The Associated Press reports that muttawa, the religious police, often harass women along the city's walking trails. About 52 percent of Saudi men and 66 percent of women are obese or overweight, according to Saudi press reports.

Lawyer Shoots Judges. [Turkey] At least five judges were wounded when an attorney opened fire in Turkey's top administrative court, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency. The court had come under widespread criticism for a recent ruling that said public employees and teachers cannot wear headscarves while at work. Tansel Colasan, deputy head of the administrative court, the Council of State, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying the attacker shouted, "I am the soldier of God," and said he was carrying out the attack to protest the court decision on headscarves. "These attacks will never reach their goal," Sezer said, adding that the justice system would not be intimidated and would fulfill its duty with "loyalty to the secular and democratic republic." Turkey, a Muslim country, is a largely secular society and many citizens have long been suspicious of fundamentalist Islam. However, there are many traditional Muslims in the country, and many women don traditional religious attire.

Arab Media Pledge to Higlight Girls’ Education. [United Arab Emirates] “Engaging the media towards an ethical and social agenda” was the aim of the second Arab Media Forum, concluded in Dubai Thursday, according to Anis Salem of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Middle East and North Africa office. The three-day event, which sought to encourage the role of the media in advancing children’s rights in the region, was coordinated by UNICEF in partnership with the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the Dubai Press Club, Dubai Aid and Humanitarian City and the Arab Institute for Human Rights, along with other institutions. Organisers promoted the forum as part of an initiative focusing on specific topics relating to Arab children. The event was a follow-up to the first media forum on children’s rights, also held in Dubai in December 2004. That event was attended by more than 50 media experts representing 13 Arab countries. This week’s forum, attended by some 70 representatives of media and social organisations, concentrated on the creation of a regional network of UN, social and media organisations devoted to highlighting issues of gender, education and children's rights. Media representatives from several countries committed themselves to follow up with reports, interviews and media campaigns, especially on women’s and girls’ education.

Government Waives Girls' Tuition Fees to Boost Female Enrolment. [Yemen] The Ministry of Education announced on Saturday its decision to waive primary school tuition fees for female students in an effort to encourage school enrolment among girls. "The goal is to boost girls' enrolment and ensure they will continue learning," said Education Minister Abdulsalam al-Jawfi. "We're obliged to bridge the gap between male and female education – mainly in the countryside – and work towards achieving our goal of education for all by 2015." Al-Jawfi added that the decision, which targets around one million girl students for primary education, was in line with Yemen's commitments to promote and expand education among the female population. Tuition for girls, therefore, which was formerly set at the equivalent of about US $3 per year, will now be entirely free of charge. "I know school fees weren't that much before, but they still represented an obstacle for many poor families," said Abdulmalik al-Kamali, a village teacher. "I'm sure this decision will boost female enrolment." The move comes within the context of the government's Basic Education Development Strategy (BEDS), developed in 2002 with the help of the World Bank and donor countries and agencies. According to Al-Jawfi, girls' enrolment increased last year by 3.5 percent as a result of over 1,300 new education initiatives, including construction of schools and teacher training. "Yemen prepared a suitable education strategy which has been reviewed and endorsed by the international community," said BEDS Director Abdulateef al-Munaifi. "BEDS is targeting education quality, capacity building and encouraging child enrolment." Nevertheless, an April statement from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) noted that 46 percent of Yemeni children eligible for schooling "are not given basic education", with primary school enrolment for boys and girls countrywide standing at about 65 percent and 41 percent, respectively.