News and Views by Region
Australia: Court Action Against Forced Marriage of Girl
An Australian court has placed a 16-year-old girl on the airport watch list to prevent an arranged marriage taking place in Lebanon.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, applied to the Federal Magistrates Court for an order to restrain her parents from taking her out of Australia to marry a man she had met only once.
The girl, given the pseudonym Ms Madley by the court, approached the Legal Aid Commission after her parents organised the wedding despite her telling them that she did not want to go to Lebanon and did not want to marry the man.
Australia’s Honour killings – In the end, they’re just as dead
was released from prison last Friday, after only eight years following his conviction for and burying her in a shallow grave. The details of the case reveal a textbook case of a controlling, abusive spouse who killed his wife rather than let her leave.
One reason the Ramage case has been in the news so much is that it was the last time the defence of “provocation” was used in a court case in Victoria.
Fiji: Police Shut down Fiji Women's Rights Movement birthday retreat
Police closed down the Fiji’s Women’s Rights Movement’s (FWRM) retreat and planning at the Pearl resort in Pacific harbor this morning. At around 9.30am, a police officer, known as Tomu, from the Central Investigation Department asked the hotel event coordinator whether FWRM had a permit. The information was relayed to the FWRM Executive Director, Virisila Buadromo, who informed him that the event was an internal FWRM planning.
Australia: A push for sharia
THE nation's peak Muslim group is using the Gillard government's re-embracing of multiculturalism to push for the introduction of sharia in Australia, but it says it would be a more moderate variety of Islamic law that fits with Australian values.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the government's new multiculturalism policy, argues that Muslims should enjoy "legal pluralism".
Fiji: The Many Faces of Violence against Women
FemLINK Pacific's 16 Days of Community Radio Campaign continues to serve as a platform for local women to speak out on issues that are connected to the annual women's human rights campaign which brings global attention to the many faces of violence, including the silence that is perpetuated because of political, institutional and social structures: