Jezebel: Sudan

Toe The Line

Erin Gloria Ryan — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 11:20:00 EST

Peiti, Sudan, Jan 9: Southern Sudanese women wait to cast their votes at a polling station. About four million Southern Sudanese voters began casting their ballots in a referendum on independence that is expected to split the nation in two.

George Clooney & Ann Curry Visit Darfur

Dodai Stewart — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 09:00:00 EDT

George Clooney is in Sudan — along with an NBC news team and Ann Curry — trying to raise awareness about the upcoming election in January.

Tall Girls Fetch More Cows, Says Chief

Katy Kelleher — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:30:00 EDT

"Tall girls fetch more cattle because their daughters will quickly grow and can be married off to fetch even more cattle," explained the chief. How do tall girls feel about being traded for livestock? "Women have no say." [LAT] More »

Stand & Deliver

Anna Holmes — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:10:00 EST

[Khartoum, Sudan; November 18. Image via Getty]

Women Face Flogging For Wearing Pants

Margaret Hartmann — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:20:00 EDT

Two Sudanese women were sentenced to 20 lashes and a $110 fine yesterday for wearing pants. They were arrested during a raid with Lubna Hussein, whose jailing related to the same "act of indecency" sparked international controversy last month. [Reuters] More »

Ambassador To Address House On Violence Against Women — But Will She Have Answers?

Anna North — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:40:00 EDT

Human Rights Watch says ambassador-at-large Melanne Verveer wasn't specific enough in her advice to the Senate on how to stop violence against women in Sudan. The group will be listening as she addresses a House panel on today. [UPI.com] More »

"Australian Fritzl" Makes Headlines After 30 Years Of Abuse • Man Wins Ladies' Poker Tournament

Katy Kelleher — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:40:00 EDT

• A man from Australia has been named the "Aussie Fritzl" after police discovered that he raped his daughter repeatedly over the course of 30 years and fathered four children with her. More »

Were Dogs Originally Man's Best Meal? • Farmers In India Selling Wives To Pay Debts

Katy Kelleher — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:40:00 EDT

• We're so used to thinking of dogs as companions that we often forget the most basic reason people buddy up to animals: Food. A new study suggests wolves were first domesticated in southeastern China for their meat. • More »

The Wrong Trousers

Anna Holmes — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:10:00 EDT

[Khartoum, Sudan; August 4. Image via Getty]

Sudanese Reporter Speaks Out On Pants Arrest

Anna North — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EDT

Lubna Hussein faces flogging in Sudan for the crime of wearing pants. She tells the Observer, "It is not about religion, it is about men treating women badly." [Observer] More »

Angelina Jolie Pleads For International Intervention in Darfur

Megan Carpentier — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:20:00 EDT

Today, Angelina Jolie writes for Time, "Friday is a defining moment in the history of justice." Why? Because the U.N. Security Council is getting the (obvious) results of the International Criminal Court investigation into Sudanese President Omar al Bashir. More »

Would You Buy A Car From This Man?

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Barack Obama would like to sell you a new, fuel-efficient car with an underpriced voucher to save the auto industry. He'd prefer you buy American but probably can't make you. [Washington Post]

Mr. Clooney Goes To War

Dodai Stewart — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:45:00 EST

NY Times journalist Nicholas Kristof writes of George Clooney in Darfur: "Mr. Clooney figured that since cameras follow him everywhere, he might as well redirect some of that spotlight to people who need it more." More »

Sarah & Bristol Palin Discuss Sex, Pregnancy & Abstinence Education

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST

While Bristol and Sarah Palin were giving a joint interview to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that was interesting for its honesty, Japan's Finance Minister gave a blotto public address that got him booted. More »

Darfur: When Assault Becomes A Case For Genocide

Megan Carpentier — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, has pressed charges against Sudan's President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir for a variety of things and is awaiting the decision of 3 judges on what basis, if any, they will issue a warrant for his arrest. One of the many charges Moreno-Ocampo has asked be brought against Bashir is for the use of rape as a weapon on genocide. If the court agrees, it will be the first time that anyone has been charged with using mass rape to commit genocide. More »

Fashion Police

Maria — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Remember the 35 southern Sudanese women we posted about yesterday who were arrested on Sunday (but not charged) for wearing tight pants? Turns out the South Sudan president Salva Kiir is not too pleased with the police crackdown on clothing choices (the police now claim they suspected the women of belonging to youth gangs) and demanded today that all the women be released. Kiir also ordered a "serious investigation" into the police's behavior. [Reuters] More »

Special Blankets Promise Successful Swaddling • 35 Women Arrested For Tight Pants In Sudan

Maria — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:30:00 EDT

• Special baby blankets promise to help parents swaddle their little ones, a sometimes daunting process of wrapping infants snugly to calm them while sleeping that might prevent SIDS. • A Taiwanese study found that pregnant women listening to various types of music (including lullabies and classical music) at a tempo of 60 to 80 beats a minute experienced less stress and anxiety. • A recent study of 194 pregnant smokers found that nicotine gum may not make pregnant women quit smoking but it will reduce their amount of daily cigarettes. • Lisa Kokin makes art out of buttons and other random things you have floating around in your junk drawer. • More »

Sexual Abuse By Aid Workers Is Underreported In Developing, Struggling Nations

Jessica G. — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:30:00 EDT

There's no way to sugarcoat or qualify this: news wires are abuzz with reports of widespread abuse of minors by UN peacekeepers and other humanitarian workers in post-conflict nations. According to a report released today by UK nonprofit Save the Children that focuses on the Ivory Coast, Haiti, and southern Sudan, "the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children could be found in every type of humanitarian organization at all levels." In Sudan, "people don't report [sexual abuse] because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them," a teen says. There are many specific instances of abuse described by the the organization, but the most chilling so far is the story of 'Elizabeth' (pictured above left), a 13-year-old from the Ivory Coast. More »

Pregnant Women In Poverty Often Die Needlessly

Dodai Stewart — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Reading depressing statistics can be numbing. Your eyes glaze over, you feel paralyzed with woe, and yet how else can one convey the details of a global crisis? So here goes: Worldwide, 500,000 women die in childbirth every year; more than 90 percent live in Africa or Asia, and almost all are poor, according to The Washington Post. In Sudan, one in 50 women die during childbirth. That's 2,030 dead mothers per 100,000 births. In Haiti, 100 out of every 100,000 pregnant women die (down from 1,400 per 100,000. The US maternal mortality rate is 14 per 100,000.) The UN would like to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by the year 2015, but progress is already probably too slow to meet that goal. The thing is, some solutions that would save lives are simple and low-tech. For instance: More »

Thank You, Mia Farrow, For Ruining Steven Spielberg's Olympics

Moe — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:00:58 EST

It hasn't gotten quite the press of, say, Scarlett Johnasson's phone banking for Obama, but Mia Farrow has exploited every waning ounce of her celebrity reminding the press freedom-enjoying community that China imports billions of dollars worth of oil from the Sudan, sometimes trading that oil for weapons and anyway propping up a genocidal Arab dictatorship that might stop butchering its citzens if it exercised its economic muscle. But yesterday's announcement that Steven Spielberg would step down from his post as a creative director for the upcoming Olympic Games is a huge — if somewhat Pyhrric — victory for her cause. See, China could very easily sway the murderous Sudanese government to let up on its human rights abuses. But to do so would be to acknowledge that such a thing as "human rights" exists. And by extension that the current power structure in China can only claim to have been good for the country's humans because it inflicted so much senseless inhumanity and brutal oppression in the forty years preceding the present era that the country actually appears, relative to the days in which kids were brainwashed into beating up their parents and shit, to be not so bad. More »