[kitchencabinetforum] PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Obama has just issued an Executive Order on Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Girls Globally to further enhance the Administration's efforts to advance the rights and status of women and girls, to promote gender equality in U.S. foreign policy, and to bring about a world in which all individuals can pursue their aspirations without the threat of violence. http://venitism.blogspot.com

We condemn the gender-based violence against women that is on the rise at all levels of Islam. It began in 2005 with the government's systematic campaign of sexually assaulting and intimidating female activists and journalists. When the regime attacks women and holds no one accountable, it sends out a signal that women are fair game. When the street then attacks women and the police stands by and does nothing, that continues.

Violence against women and girls cuts across ethnicity, race, class, religion, education level, and international borders. Although statistics on the prevalence of violence vary, the scale is tremendous, the scope is vast, and the consequences for individuals, families, communities, and countries are devastating.

An estimated one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence experienced by women globally. Other forms of violence include human trafficking, sexual violence, including when used as a tactic of war, and harmful traditional practices, such as early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and honor killings.

A recent survey conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights showed that more than 80 percent of Egyptian women face sexual harassment, groping, and unwanted sexual attention. This is a problem the Egyptian people must not hide from.

This Executive Order, which creates an interagency working group co-chaired by the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), directs departments and agencies to implement the new United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally. This Strategy was developed by the Department of State and USAID in coordination with other relevant U.S. Government departments and agencies.

Egyptian women are attacked by the regime, women are attacked by the street, women are attacked openly. There is something about gender-based violence in Egypt that is horrific. We have to look it in the eye and we must speak out about it, not just when it is the regime that is doing it to women, but when it's Egyptian men on the civilian level who are doing it to women.

The Executive Order will ensure that agencies prioritize this issue in their implementation of U.S. foreign policy, and that work in this area is evaluated. Recognizing that this is a long-term commitment, the Order directs the interagency working group to update or revise the Strategy after three years.

Islam requires all women to dress like zombies! Veil and headscarf are not welcome in Fourth Reich (EU), because they are symbols of women's subservience, repression, incivility, and an increasingly divided Fourth Reich. Veil and headscarf make women invisible, transform women to zombies, invalidate women's participatory rights, flag women as evil temptresses, oppress women with barbarity, are brands of misogynist Islam, and are a security threat. http://venitism.blogspot.com