Menstrual Woes Deepen Agony For Women In Gaza: UNICEF’s Most Recent Report
New Age Islam
News Bureau
04 November 2023
·
Menstrual
Woes Deepen Agony For Women In Gaza: UNICEF’s Most Recent Report
·
Winnipeg
Woman, Sarwat Qureshi, Harassed With Anti-Muslim Slurs, Fears For Her Safety
·
Iranian
Woman, A Trainer At An All-Women's Gym, Gets Death Sentence For Adultery
·
Two Women
Charged With UK Terrorism Offences After Pro-Palestinian Protest
·
CAIR
Welcomes Hate Crime Charges for Assault on Muslim Woman in Utah
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/menstrual-gaza-unicef/d/131047
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Menstrual Woes Deepen Agony For Women In
Gaza: UNICEF’s Most Recent Report
Palestinians
wash clothes with seawater, amid a lack of of clean water on a beach in Deir
al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on November 2. — Reuters
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November 4, 2023
THE situation in Gaza is deteriorating
daily, and the most challenging struggles are being faced by women and
children.
Women have no safe places to seek
refuge, and the sanitary conditions are progressively worsening. According to
Unicef’s most recent report, women are going through the worst menstruation
crisis of the decade.
Due to the dire and unhygienic
conditions in Gaza at present, many women have turned to using pills to
postpone their menstrual cycles. Women in Gaza are confronting displacement and
overcrowding, along with a shortage of access to water and menstrual hygiene
items, the report says.
Women have started using norethisterone
tablets, which are typically prescribed for conditions like painful periods,
heavy menstrual bleeding, or endometriosis.
Dr Walid Abu Hatab, a medical consultant
in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis,
explained to The Guardian that these tablets maintain elevated progesterone
levels to prevent the uterus from shedding its lining, thus delaying
menstruation.
Nevin Adnan, a psychologist and social
worker based in Gaza City, notes that more women are considering the use of
period-delaying pills to avoid embarrassment and shame due to an absence of
hygiene, privacy and health products.
Nevertheless, these pills come with side
effects, including irregular vaginal bleeding, nausea, alterations in menstrual
cycle, dizziness and mood swings. Women in Gaza contend they had no choice but
to take this risk due to the relentless genocidal campaign and blockade by the
Israeli army.
“These war days are the toughest I’ve
ever faced. I’ve had my period twice this month, which is highly unusual for
me, and I’ve been dealing with heavy bleeding,” Salma Khaled, a 41-year-old who
had to leave her home in the Tel Al Hawa neighbourhood and is currently seeking
shelter with family, told Al Jazeera.
Lacking the means to manage her
menstruation as she normally would, Salma decided to seek out pills to delay
her period. While sanitary napkins are in high demand and difficult to find,
period-delaying tablets are relatively more accessible in some pharmacies since
they are not commonly used.
Physical and mental streess
Many displaced women in Gaza speak of
the toll that the past three weeks have taken on their physical and mental
well-being.
The displacement of hundreds of
thousands of people has created immense stress for all residents in Gaza, and
for women who are menstruating, or in the days leading up to or following their
period, their symptoms get exacerbated.
Pharmacies and stores are grappling with
depleting supplies due to the complete blockade enforced by Israel after Oct
7.
Source: dawn.com
https://www.dawn.com/news/1786261/menstrual-woes-deepen-agony-for-women
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Winnipeg Woman, Sarwat Qureshi, Harassed
With Anti-Muslim Slurs, Fears For Her Safety
Sarwat
Qureshi said nobody should have to go what she went through Friday. (Randall
McKenzie/CBC)
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Nov 03, 2023
A Muslim woman from Winnipeg says she's
shocked, scared and in disbelief after being accosted twice Friday morning.
Sarwat Qureshi was driving her son to
Acadia High School in Fort Richmond when she was waved down by a person who
then hurled anti-Muslim and Islamophobic slurs at her. After dropping her son
off and taking a different street, Qureshi crossed paths with the person again
and she said they tried to physically enter her van.
"That individual didn't know me,
didn't know my name, we've never met before," said Qureshi. "But so
much hate that he had for me just because of the way I dress, I can't
understand it, it's hard to explain."
Qureshi said after dropping her son off
at school she didn't want to drive back on Kilkenny Drive, and instead chose to
take Rochester Avenue. By chance, saw them walking down the street. Qureshi
said she slowed down the van to try to take a photo.
That's when the person got physical with
the vehicle.
"For a fraction of a second I'm
like 'Oh my god, maybe the door is not locked,' thankfully was locked,"
she said. "At that time he started hitting the … passenger side window,
started kicking the car and started pulling the side view mirror."
"And that time I just drove and
then I saw him running after me. So I drove away, I went towards Dalhousie and
took a long route too because I didn't want him to see where I live."
She said as soon as she got home she
contacted the police. CBC News has asked the Winnipeg Police Service for
comment on the incident, but hasn't heard back.
Incident 'not surprising' says local
researcher
A local researcher and author in Islamic
studies and Islamophobia said the incident isn't surprising.
YoucefSoufi has been gathering stories
for the last three weeks in his role as a consultant with the Manitoba Islamic
Association. He also knows Qureshi and her family.
Soufi said since the latest conflict
between Israel and Hamas began, he's heard from people who are receiving death
threats online, having their windows smashed, having racial slurs hurled at
them, being threatened at a grocery store and kids being bullied at school.
"It's jarring, I first learned
about it on a WhatsApp group and everybody within that WhatsApp group was
expressing concern and was very worried about her and her family, so that's my
first reaction," he said.
"My second reaction is, it's not
surprising, we know anti-Muslim racism has been part of our landscape for as
long as we can remember in Manitoba."
Soufi also said while Qureshi isn't Arab
or Palestinian, she was on the receiving end of "increased
prejudices."
He said locally, when data collection
began, 17 stories were gathered without any difficulty. It was clear just
within a few days there had been a spike in Islamophobia, Soufi said.
"Since that time, I have collected
more stories, it's been situations like these ones, where somebody in the
Muslim community has said 'Hey, this person went through a really scary story,
why don't you share it with Dr. Soufi so he can document it.'"
Islamic Association issues statement
The Manitoba Islamic Association asked
for anyone with information about the incident to contact police in a statement
Friday afternoon.
The statement also said the association
is working with the community and Qureshi to ensure the "troubling and
hateful incident doesn't go unaddressed or unnoticed."
The association also called on "local elected politicians to
acknowledge that Islamophobia in Canada is on the rise, and to dedicate the
resources and effort required in order to eliminate this problem" in the
country.
Qureshi, who has lived in the
neighbourhood for more than a decade, said she's scared not just for her
safety, but also for her friends and family.
"No one should have to go through
what I went through," said Qureshi. "No child should have to hear
what my child heard today."
Source: cbc.ca
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/woman-wonders-why-she-was-accosted-by-man-1.7018572
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Iranian Woman, A Trainer At An
All-Women's Gym, Gets Death Sentence For Adultery
Tanya Savkoor
Nov 04, 2023
A woman in Iran has been sentenced to
death by the Iranian court for adultery, the state media reported. The woman's
husband contacted the police in 2022, claiming he saw through surveillance
cameras that she had relations with other men.
The woman worked as a trainer at an
all-women's gym. Under Iranian law, the woman can appeal the sentence, as the
court sometimes reduces death penalties to lighter punishments upon appeal.
The Iranian law states that crimes
punishable by the death penalty include adultery, sodomy, murder, rape, armed
robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking.
Increasing rate of death penalties
According to Iran Human Rights, at least
610 executions have taken place in 2023, out of which, 15 were executions of
women. In the first 20 days of May alone, 106 executions were performed in
Iran, deeming it the "bloodiest month" in more than five years. UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that at least 419 people received
capital punishment in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 30%
from the same period last year.
There was a 75% increase in executions
that took place in 2022 as compared to the previous year. Massive protests
broke out globally last year after the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for
allegedly donning a loose hijab, which is against the Iranian Islamic dress
code. The rallies were cracked down by the Iranian government and protestors
were directly targeted with live ammunition, killing over 537 protestors, seven
men were executed and thousands including women, journalists, lawyers, and
minority people were detained.
Guterres said that in all seven
executions, access to adequate legal representation was frequently denied,
while they were reportedly tortured and coerced to confess. He also said that
239 people were reportedly put to death in the first seven months of this year
for drug-related offences, a 98% increase from the same period in 2022.
Among many recommendations, the
secretary-general urged Iran to immediately halt all executions, abolish the
death penalty and release all people detained for exercising their rights to
freedom of opinion and expression, association and peaceful assembly.
It was reported earlier this year that
over 20,000 detained protestors were pardoned by the Iran government but the UN
secretary-general said that some of the pardoned protestors then received
summonses on new charges or were rearrested. The protestors were subjected to
excessive use of force, psychological abuse, and sexual violence in detention.
Source: shethepeople.tv
https://www.shethepeople.tv/news/iran-woman-sentenced-to-death-for-adultery-1684267
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Two Women Charged With UK Terrorism
Offences After Pro-Palestinian Protest
Nov 04, 2023
The women allegedly wore stickers with
images of paragliders at a protest in London Oct. 14. They were charged under
the Terrorism Act.
Two women have been charged with
terrorism offences after allegedly displaying pro-Hamas imagery at a London
demonstration, police said on Friday, as they warned about possible
radicalisation as a result of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
There have been growing tensions in
Britain and elsewhere since a deadly Hamas attack on Israel last month and
Israel's retaliation on Gaza, with tens of thousands of protesters taking part
in pro-Palestinian marches demanding the British government call for a
ceasefire.
The women allegedly wore stickers with
images of paragliders at a protest in London Oct. 14. They were charged under
the Terrorism Act and are due to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates'
Court Nov. 10.
Some Hamas fighters used paragliders in
the attack on Israel and Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in
Britain. The Crown Prosecution Service said the images "aroused reasonable
suspicion that they are supporters of a proscribed organisation, namely
Hamas."
Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan
Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said the public is concerned about
"some people using the veil of legitimate protest to carry out criminal or
even terrorist activity."
"There have been an increase in
counterterrorism investigations emanating directly from protests," he told
reporters, adding that events overseas "can act as a radicalising
factor."
Earlier this week FBI Director
Christopher Wray warned the Hamas attack on Israel that prompted Israel to
bombard Gaza would inspire the most significant terror threat to the United
States since the rise of ISIS nearly a decade ago.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism on
Friday said London police had not applied or enforced existing laws with
"sufficient rigour", and police said they would be proactive and use
sharper interventions to make arrests in big crowds, including analysing social
media and employing retrospective facial recognition.
Source: hindustantimes.com
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/two-women-charged-with-uk-terrorism-offences-after-pro-palestinian-protest-101699039051438.html
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CAIR Welcomes Hate Crime Charges for
Assault on Muslim Woman in Utah
Ismail Allison
November 3, 2023
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/3/2023) – The
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil
rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed hate crime charges for an
apparently bias-motivated assault targeting a Muslim woman in Salt Lake County,
Utah.
The woman said that as she and her son
exited the TRAX train, a man across the street began screaming anti-Muslim
statements. He then reportedly crossed the street and spat in the woman’s face.
The man was arrested shortly after the incident. The Salt Lake District
Attorney Sim Gill said hate crime enhancements are being brought against the
perpetrator.
SEE: Utah man accused of hate crime for
spitting on Muslim mother and son
Muslim woman recounts targeted assault
that could be charged as hate crime (ksltv.com)
In a statement, CAIR National
Communications Manager Ismail Allison said:
“To harass and assault a woman with a
seven-year-old child next to her on the basis of her faith is a truly heinous
and despicable act. As anti-Muslim hate incidents continue to rise in the
aftermath of the escalation of violence in Gaza, it is essential that law
enforcement agencies take each incident seriously and we applaud them for doing
so in this case.”
He noted that CAIR recorded nearly 800
complaints in the 20 days following Oct. 7.
SEE: CAIR Reports Sharp Increase in
Complaints, Reported Bias Incidents Since 10/7
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil
rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American
Muslims.
La misión de CAIR esproteger las
libertadesciviles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y
empoderar a losmusulmanesenlosEstadosUnidos.
Source:
cair.com
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-welcomes-hate-crime-charges-for-assault-on-muslim-woman-in-utah/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/menstrual-gaza-unicef/d/131047