By Hollie McKay -Published October 25, 2010 – FoxNews.com

What is it with photo shoots about sexy schoolgirls?

“Glee” stars Dianna Agron and Lea Michele got down and dirty for a GQ magazine spread released last week, set in high school, sucking lollipops, with their legs wide open.

Earlier this year supermodel Miranda Kerr posed topless in school girl clothes in French fashion magazine “Numero.” 

In 2001, “Lolita” star Dominque Swain posed naked in a classroom in a campaign for animal rights activists PETA.

And in 1999, Britney Spears burst onto the scene donning pig tails and a sexy school uniform in the video for “(Hit Me) Baby One More Time,” and appeared in a bra and panties on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Experts tell Pop Tarts that these instances of young women posing suggestively as school girls impact all women by promoting the ideal that the younger the woman, the more appealing she is.

“Although the actresses [in the 'Glee' shoot] are adults, they are dressed as schoolgirls. This promotes and drives the male obsession and desire for younger and younger women,” explained relationship expert Patrick Wanis, PhD. “The GQ ‘Glee’ photo shoot also sends the message to women that if you want to be attractive and appealing to men, then you need to be really young – a teenager – and sexual.”

But that’s not all. According to Gavin McKiernan, the Parents Television Council’s National Grassroots Director, another problem with the racy “Glee” shoot is that it is blatantly sexist.

“We have seen this over and over again that youth stars are told they need to become sexy to make the step from young actress to adult leading lady, yet young male actors rarely need to jump through these same hoops,” McKiernan told Tarts.

In the photo spread, Monteith is fully clothed while his female counterparts are draped over him in next to no clothes, sporting kitschy, clichéd makeup.

Some, however, don’t believe the shoot was out of line.

“GQ magazine is a magazine created very specifically for men, ranging in age from 24-49 years old. The cover shot and accompanying photo spread shows them (the ‘Glee’ stars) taking on characters for a photo story. Similar to plot lines created for movies and TV shows, photographers typically tell fictional stories in editorial spreads such as the one in discussion,” explained Joslyn Davis, media expert and host of Clevver TV. “None of these actors are anywhere near school-age, and capable of making their own life and career decisions.”

Regardless of the subjects’ culpability, do the photographers bear any responsibility for the content of their shoots? After all, Miley Cyrus didn’t exactly snap the controversial pictures of herself topless with smudged eyeliner for “Vanity Fair” when she was just 15, and neither did Britney Spears, who in 1999 posed in a bra and panties in a little girl’s bedroom for Rolling Stone.

“Hollywood photographers have long oversexed their young, as with Britney’s infamous Rolling Stone shot by Dave LaChapelle, Miley’s Vanity Fair Annie Leibovitz shoot, and now the GQ ‘Glee’ Terry Richardson shoot,” Associated Press pop culture expert Natalie Rotman told Pop Tarts. “Young celebrities know their craft … but the fashion world is new to them. So they trust and listen to photographers, when they should be listening to themselves.”

But it is not just magazines, music and television that are sexing up preteen girls. In 2008, manufacturers Heelarious began marketing high heels for babies, and earlier this year British retailer Asda was forced to remove padded bras for pre-teens following public outcry. A couple of years ago Disney came under harsh criticism for selling “High School Musical” underwear that had the words “Dive In” on them, and in 2002 Abercrombie & Fitch sparked outrage by selling thong underwear to young girls.

And with Halloween approaching, the generic “sexy school girl” costume is bound to be as widely worn as ever. McKiernan said its just another sad example of modern day society.

“It’s disturbing that it (the school girl get-up) has become the norm on Halloween,” he said. “If you are female and want to get dressed up and join the fun, you are expected to be wearing as little clothes as possible.” 

- Deidre Behar contributed to this report.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery.

Opposition groups in Iran say police have been trying to execute an arrest warrant on the lawyer of a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.

The case has caused an international outcry against Iran, which ordered a temporary reprieve for the woman.

A leading opposition website reported that security police went to the offices of lawyer Mohammed Mostafaie armed with an arrest warrant.

His wife and her brother were taken into custody but there was no word on the whereabouts of the lawyer, who is a well-known human rights activist.

Supporters said he invited arrest by speaking to foreign media outlets about the case of his client, 43-year old mother-of-two Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery.

In a separate case, award winning Iranian journalist and anti-death penalty campaigner, Emadeddin Baghi, has been sentenced to a year in prison and a five-year ban from political activity for forming a group for the rights of prisoners.

Times of London

The girl’s unusual legal challenge to the arrangement generated international media attention and scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s record of child marriages.

A 12-year-old Saudi girl has won a divorce from her 80-year-old husband in a case that may help to introduce a minimum age of marriage in the kingdom for the first time.

The girl’s unusual legal challenge to the arrangement generated international media attention and scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s record of child marriages. It also prompted the state-run Human Rights Commission to appoint a lawyer to represent her. The commission has capitalized on the case and pushed for a legal minimum age for marriage of at least 16.

“The main aim is to not allow cases like this to happen again,” said Alanoud al-Hejailan, a lawyer for the commission. “There will be some opposition, of course, but we feel that public opinion has changed on this issue.”

Since the girl’s case became public, judges and clerics in Saudi Arabia have waded into the debate about whether child marriages should be banned. The Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a 9-year-old girl has been used as justification for the practice in some quarters.

In January, however, Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie, a senior Saudi cleric, spoke out in defense of the girl, declaring that the Prophet’s marriage 14 centuries ago could not be used to justify child brides today.

The 12-year-old has been fighting her case through the courts in the conservative town of Buraidah, near Riyadh, the capital. She was married against her wishes to her father’s elderly cousin last year. A dowry of 85,000 riyals (about $23,000) was paid and the marriage consummated.

She has now reached agreement with her family that a divorce will be settled privately, and has dropped her legal challenge to the marriage.

Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, in New York. Bharara indicated that the Gambino organized crime family has reached a new low by allegedly being involved with sex trafficking of a minor. (AP Photo/Jin Lee)

NEW YORK — A reputed boss of the Gambino organized crime family and 13 other people are facing an array of charges, including what prosecutors called new criminal territory for the mob: sex trafficking of a minor, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Papers filed in federal court in Manhattan allege that Gambino soldiers and associates recruited prostitutes at strip clubs, including a 15-year-old, and advertised their services on the Internet.

Prosecutors said the mobsters drove the prostitutes to appointments in Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and New Jersey, splitting their earnings with them. The defendants also “made the young women available for sex to the players at the regular high-stakes poker games” hosted by the family, the court papers said.

Federal agents escort Michael Scotto from Federal Plaza on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, in New York. Scotto is allegedly connected to the Gambino crime family. (AP Photo/Jin Lee)

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the sex trafficking ring both a “new low” and an apparent “first for the mob.”

An indictment also charged Daniel Marino, an alleged member of the Gambino ruling panel, with ordering a hit from prison on his own nephew because the nephew was cooperating with the FBI. Gunmen lured the victim to a Staten Island nightspot in 1998, where they shot him three times in the face and back.

Marino, 69, was charged in a second murder of a gangland rival in 1989, extorting construction firms and running an illegal gambling operation. The income “sustained Marino’s own lavish lifestyle,” the court papers said.

Twelve of the suspects were arrested Tuesday, and one was arrested April 16. Federal authorities are still seeking Steven Maiurro, 31, of Staten Island, a fugitive believed to be in the New York area and considered armed and dangerous.

The case marked the latest in a series indictments and prosecutions that have crippled the Gambino family since notorious boss John Gotti, the so-called Dapper Don, was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. He died in 2002.

Federal agents escort Dave Eisler from Federal Plaza on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, in New York. Eisler is allegedly connected to the Gambino organized crime family. (AP Photo/Jin Lee)

Federal authorities said Tuesday that though the Gambinos now maintain a lower profile, they still are 200 strong and are always exploring new ways to stay in business.

“It’s still about making money,” said George Venizelos, head of the New York FBI office.

Marino was detained after pleading not guilty on Tuesday. Afterward, his lawyer, Charles Carnesi, said his client had just been released Monday from a New York hospital, where he had been since Friday.

“It could be heart-related, stroke-related,” Carnesi said. Otherwise, the lawyer added, “He’s in remarkably good health.”

Associated Press Writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report.

John Defendis

As a Professional Athlete, Businessman and Dedicated Husband, I feel that every woman has a right to live free and never have to worry about being abused or violated in any way. I commend and support The FreeGirl Foundation and I ask that we respect women and their rights by standing up for what is right.

With Respect,

Mr. USA John DeFendis

defendis@aoL.com  

Weight Loss, Health & Fitness Expert, Life Coach

Fitness Hall of Fame (Inducted in 2007)

Mr. USA & IFBB Professional Athlete

Motivational Speaker, Author

Michelle Davis

Hi, my name is Michelle Davis.  I am 29 years old and a single mom of two young children. I couldn’t be more happy with my life right now. I have come a long way in finding my independence. I am excited about my future as I’m on a good path right now. But, it hasn’t always been this way.

I  experienced my first abusive relationship at the age of 13.  Looking back at my life, I can now see a void that took shape long before I was 13. In my home growing up, I was my Dad’s pride and joy. But my father battled alcohol and the attention I used to get from him, he began giving to a bottle. So, I started to feel worthless as I hit my teenage years.

At 13 I fell for an older guy who showered me with all the attention I could ever want. Everything I wasn’t getting at home from my father, he made up for it. He praised me all the time for every little thing. He showered me with gifts. He made me feel valuable again. He made me feel like I was really somebody. I couldn’t see it at the time, but looking back it was all an effort on his part to sleep with me.

The control started shortly after we slept together for the first time.  And then the verbal and physical abuse soon followed.  That began a cycle of abusive relationships that lasted up until my young adulthood. I finally summoned the courage to climb out of the little dark world I was living in.  I made that choice just a few years ago when I turned 26. 

At 23 I went to my first domestic violence shelter. I had a 3 year old girl and a 7 year old boy at the time. Just locating these shelters was hard enough. I went through half a dozen shelters before I found one that would accept my children.

Once inside the shelter, I soon found out that being in there was almost as frightening as being in the abusive relationship that I was trying to escape.  It was a nightmare. The ladies in there were arguing and fighting with each other constantly. They were stealing each others’ belongings.  Just as I found the courage to remove my children out of my abusive relationship, I now was faced with having them in this shelter with constant abuse and violence all around me.  It was chaotic to say the least. I was disillusioned with everything. Simply put, I was lost.

I saw the good things that these shelters had to offer. I also saw how things could be improved upon. Over time, after a lot of soul searching, I came to realize all the great things about me and I also began to understand what I could do to better myself. For the first time in my life I realized that I had value just being on my own. I didn’t need a man to validate me. Somewhere along the way, I matured and started believing myself when I would say that “I deserve better”.

Once I got to that point in my life, I packed my bags and moved to Florida ready for a brand new start free from violence or intimidation of any kind. While relocating, I had an awakening inside me where all I wanted to do with the rest of my life was help other women escape similar abusive situations and work with them to help them regain their independence.

Shortly after moving to Florida, I heard about The FreeGirl Foundation and learned about their mission. I was moved to contact them and share my vision for building a “Safe Home” that would be like no other. I shared my desire to create a transitional housing facility that would provide comprehensive support and resources in the areas of education, mental health, financial and occupational counseling, provide legal advice and more. I wanted to build a program that would see women through from the abusive situation up until their independence and self esteem has been restored.

Over the past few months I have been working closely with The FreeGirl team to implement a Support/Services arm of their organization. I’m proud to say that together we are building The FreeGirl Alliance and I’m honored to be involved with the planning of the future launch of the safe home.

I just wanted to introduce myself to all of the FreeGirl supporters and tell you all how excited I am to be a part of such a wonderful organization with so many fantastic people all working toward such a worthwhile mission. I’m the newest member of The FreeGirl Family and I feel at home here.

I’m going to be blogging weekly to tell you more of my story, discuss our vision , and keep you posted on all of the progress.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me at Michelle@TheFreeGirlFoundation.org. I’d love to hear from you. I find that FreeGirl’s tagline is so true! In the heart of every woman lives a FreeGirl. I look forward to do everything that I can to try and make sure that those women in abusive situations like I was in can find their way from abuse to becoming a FreeGirl.

While modern civilization has made great strides in eradicating many of the scourges that have crippled and killed millions, it has overwhelmingly welcomed the latest cancer with wide open arms. Curiously, this disease is weaved into the popular culture in such a way that few see it for what it truly is. Instead, like cigarette smokers half a century ago, it is accepted by most as a healthy and/or innocent form of personal entertainment.

The plague that is pornography has devastated the lives and relationships of countless millions, infusing society with a strain of selfishness and baseness that, if unchecked, will contributed in large part to its ultimate doom. Consider a few of the alarming statistics: as of July 2003, there were 260 million pages of porn online, an increase of 1800% since 1998; more than 70% of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month; and over 45 million unique users visit adult websites each month in the United States alone. The data continues, each thread helping to weave part of the large and ugly picture that represents this blight on our society.

As the saying goes, sex sells. In 2006, the industry netted brought in over $97 billion—more than the revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, and Netflix combined. Obviously, there is a market for this drug, and its demand is ever-increasing.

But at what cost?

Pornography and its usage serve no beneficial purpose; its only perceived advantage is the generation of large profits for those who produce and distribute it. In this sense, it is very much a drug; its peddlers rely upon its addictive nature to secure an income stream and ensure the customer returns for more.

At its core, pornography’s popularity relies upon the dehumanization of its subject, which is almost always a woman. She is treated not as a human being with character, intellect, kindness, and personality, but as a collection of anatomical components serving to induce a physiological response. The very essence of pornography is that of a false substitute—a cheap forgery whose attempt at imitation astonishingly deceives many.

Put more succintly:

Pornography takes human sexuality, with its hope of love, fidelity, family, and fulfillment, and turns it into an empty and lifeless husk. It does this as a predator destroys its prey, by eviscerating sexuality of all its inherent grace. This transmogrification, which some mistake as emancipation, takes place through processes that are neither liberating or enriching, but depersonalizing, enslaving, self-destructive, preposterous, alienating, isolating, reductionistic.

The process can be subtle enough that, for some, it goes unnoticed. But ultimately, the difference between the reality of human sexuality and its residue in pornography is all the difference in the world. It is the difference between what “gift” means in English and what “gift” (poison) means in German. Indeed, it is the difference between hope and despair, heaven and hell.

This falsification of wholesome qualities such as love, unity, and intimacy is only one of the many deceptions inherent in the very existence of this material. Another such deception is the absolute hypocrisy involved in one’s viewing of such content. Dr. Mary Anne Layden of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive Therapy once stated:

When I ask men who are sex addicts if they would want their wife or daughter to be in porn, 100 percent say, ‘No’. They want it to be somebody else’s wife or daughter. They know this material is damaging.

This aspect, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the dehumanization of those involved in pornography. Those who choose to degrade themselves through participation in such material uphold the reverse of the golden rule, doing to others’ daughters what they would not want done to their own.

Comparing the drug of pornography to that of crack cocaine—and arguing that pornography is a harder addiction to overcome—Layden also stated that it is the “most concerning thing to psychological health that [she knows] of existing today.”

Simply put, “pornography victimizes everyone—those who are addicted to it, those who live with them, a society that fosters it, a society that is trying to oppose it, even those who create it. It contaminates everyone.” Dehumanizing anybody destroys relationships and distorts behavior for all involved parties. In short, it degrades individuals, destroys families, and spoils society.

And yet, as was noted earlier, society warmly embraces this lucrative and enticing enterprise. Having become wiser, our society now sees the tobacco advertising of the mid-1900s as a deceptive, money-hungry campaign to make an unhealthy practice popular and sexy. We can only hope that some sort of catalyst will produce a similar result with pornography; our society’s successful future demands that we re-humanize the women who have become involved in this industry, and reject the fraudulent objectivization of other people’s daughters.

By Michelle Rupe Eubanks from TimesDailey.com

Catherine Young is about as typical as you can get for a fifth-grader.

At 10, she’s a competitive swimmer, works hard to keep her grades up and has lots of friends to help her wile away her free time.

Despite being active, Catherine said she’d like to lose a little weight, maybe two or three pounds from her four-and-a-half-foot frame.

“My mom reminds me not to eat when I get bored,” she said. “I know kids my age don’t need to be overweight, but it’s hard sometimes.”

Catherine said she vividly remembers being made fun of as a kindergartner for being a little chubby and, when stepping on the Wii Fit, she hears a computerized voice tell her she’s obese.

“I don’t like that,” Catherine said.

With everything going on in the life of an adolescent girl, why worry about being thin at all?

Jess Weiner, author and self-esteem guru, said it’s no longer up to the girls to decide. As a result, their self-esteem has come under attack, leaving them with skewed body images and, potentially, a lifetime spent trying to achieve an unrealistic physical ideal.

“At the very core, adolescent issues haven’t changed all that much over the decades,” she said. “You can go back years and years, and the girls then would wonder, ‘Do I fit in?’ ‘Will I be accepted?’ ‘Will I be loved?’ These are universal and timeless questions. On top of those traditional issues is an intense bombardment and acceleration of information to young women.”

Weiner estimates that, during her childhood and adolescence, a girl will see tens of thousands of media images – including clothing advertisements in magazines, display ads on the Internet and billboards – dictating to her how she should look.

“Women’s bodies for a long time have been separated from women’s lives,” she said. “We’re used to seeing women’s bodies pulled apart and hyper-airbrushed so as to look like mechanized, robotic images of a woman’s body.”

The pictures of stick-thin models can be hard to ignore.

About-face.com, a Web site dedicated to combating negative and distorted images of women, has listed the Top 10 offenders of body image. Included are some familiar names, such as Allure magazine, which About-Face.com claims repeatedly prints images of women than are not real or achievable, as well as some newer brands, such as Miss Bimbo, an online game designed to help players earn bimbo bucks in order to achieve their goals of an eating disorder, breast implants and a new hairstyle.

For some girls, the constant barrage of images can lead to an obsession with weight and body image. Judy Ford, the counselor at Kilby School in Florence, said it’s happening to increasingly younger girls.

Ford said she’s had conversations with children as young as 6 about weight because of peers taunting classmates who were overweight. She’s also incorporated a unit at the sixth-grade level about eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia, after seeing girls not eating during lunch.

In addition to media images, Ford said, “peers and parents are part of it, too. If the girls never saw it in the media, they might not think about it, but, because they do, we have many of these problems.”

In her role as a human growth and development professor at the University of North Alabama, Ford uses a textbook relating how deeply entrenched the notion “thin is in” has become in the American culture. Research in the book reveals many 6-year-old girls worry about becoming fat while some 40 percent of 9- and 10-year-olds are trying to lose weight.

“Why? Their concern is most often the result of the U.S. preoccupation with being slim, which permeates every sector of society,” reads the textbook.

But it has not always been that way.

As recently as the 1940s and 1950s, it was not uncommon to see advertisements in magazines and newspapers encouraging women to take supplements in order to gain weight. Ford said a shift occurred when Twiggy, the infamously thin model from the 1960s, became the fashion icon of the time.

Dr. Karen Landers, a pediatrician by training and the area health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, sees some of the effects the desire to be thin can have on young girls.

“It starts young,” she said. “Girls come in to the office and want to look like the latest teen idol. It’s been Britney Spears, and now it’s Miley Cyrus. I see many girls who want to lose 10 pounds overnight and don’t want to go through the natural process of watching their fats and sugar and diet, but they go to the extreme measure of cutting out all of those types of food, which leads to further problems, such as anorexia and bulimia.”

These problems cut across racial and socioeconomic lines, which Landers said indicates the degree to which American girls feel a desire to achieve a certain body type.

There are organizations trying to combat the stereotypes and teach girls how to build their self-esteem.

Weiner is also the global ambassador for Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, an initiative started by the Unilever brand in 2004 to serve as a starting point for change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition of beauty. One aspect of the campaign has been a print ad campaign using regular women to promote Dove products.

“What’s so revolutionary about this idea is that it’s the first time women saw others who look like them in print,” she said. “It allowed them to feel part of the message rather than just a recipient of the message. It challenges people’s ideas of beauty and opened the conversation for the possibility of change. But, remember, societal change isn’t easy, and, if it were, we’d all do it.”

Weiner said she believes it’s “100 percent possible” to effectively change how young girls and women feel about their bodies.

“We need to engage the community in sharing the same positive message for girls, so that they’re not just hearing it from peers or parents, but from coaches, priests and counselors,” she said. “It’s also important for a mom or stepmom or grandmom to have a conversation with her. Have a quality conversation where you turn the TV off, get away from distractions and be engaged. That’s what so many fifth-graders want – to be valued and not taken for granted.”

Girls Scouts of the USA has partnered with Dove on the campaign and, as a result, has adopted the uniquely ME! initiative.

Judy Schoenberg, the director of research and outreach for Girl Scouts, has researched the best ways to approach girls in the 8- to 17-year-old age range to meet their specific needs.

“In 2006, we released a report called the ‘New Normal’ about what girls say about healthy living, and we talked in terms of the childhood obesity epidemic, how they define health and what health means to them,” she said. “What we found is that girls view health not just about physical health, but there’s an emotional component to it, too.”

The study also revealed that how a mother views her body will greatly influence how her daughter feels about her appearance, Schoenberg said.

“We’ve heard anecdotally that fathers and male role models are important, and we can’t underestimate the fact that girls size each other up and dress for each other,” she said.

Fifth-grader Bailey Sims acknowledged peer pressure as something she has to contend with at school, but, overall she said she’s fairly happy with how she looks. If she were to change anything about her appearance, though, it would be her legs.

“I think they’re a little chubby,” Bailey said. “But my mom is an inspiration to me. She had gastric bypass and lost all this weight, so I know it’s something I can do to change.”

Keeping the focus on health – not weight – is the critical component, Weiner said.

“We must redefine what healthy is and that thin does not equate to health,” she said. “Health is a combination of the mental, physical, spiritual and emotional well being. We have to gauge what is healthy for each of us, and, for girls, that means working with families and physicians to define what that is.”

PHOENIX —  A young Iraqi woman whose father allegedly hit her with his car because she had become too Westernized died from her injuries Monday after lying in a coma for nearly two weeks.

Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, underwent spinal surgery and had been in a hospital since Oct. 20, when police say her father ran down her and her boyfriend’s mother with his Jeep as the women were walking across a parking lot in the west Phoenix suburb of Peoria.

The other woman, Amal Khalaf, is expected to survive.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, fled after the attack but was arrested Thursday when he arrived at Atlanta’s airport, where he was sent from the United Kingdom after authorities denied him entrance.

Peoria police interviewed him and brought him back to Arizona over the weekend, but have declined to release what Almaleki said to them.

At a court hearing over the weekend in Phoenix, county prosecutor Stephanie Low told a judge that Almaleki admitted to committing the crime.

“By his own admission, this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family,” Low said. “This was an attempt at an honor killing.”

Family members had told police that Almaleki attacked his daughter because he believed she had become too Westernized and was not living according to his traditional Iraqi values.

Almaleki, wearing a jail uniform, said only his name and birth date during the hearing. He has declined requests to be interviewed.

Almaleki had faced charges of aggravated assault, but Peoria police spokesman Mike Tellef said the charges will be upgraded in light of Noor Faleh Almaleki’s death.

Police said the Almalekis moved to Peoria from Iraq in the mid-1990s.

The following story is about our very own FreeGirl Envoy, Paula Brewer. She is an inspiration to us all!

From Boca Raton Magazine

by Kevin Kaminski

Paula Brewer

Just one piece of encouraging news. That’s all Paula Brewer wanted to hear from her neurologist in October 2008. Hadn’t she earned it? Wasn’t it enough to survive one life-threatening episode two months earlier that brought her neurosurgeon to tears—and another, only a week later, that required a pre-eminent cardiovascular surgeon to remove something he had never seen in 28 years of open-heart procedures?

Apparently not. The neurologist looked at the Wellington resident sitting before him in a wheelchair and suggested that she consider another line of work. He didn’t see Brewer ever regaining the mobility needed to resume her career as a dental hygienist.

“I left in tears,” she says. “My one goal was to return to that office and do this to him.” Brewer defiantly raises her left middle finger.

Believe it or not, this is an encouraging piece of news. Last October, Brewer couldn’t move her middle finger—or much of anything on the left side of her body. She remained partially paralyzed, the result of a stroke that touched off a chain of events best summed up by Brewer’s then-boyfriend, Foy Jenkins. “She had one foot at death’s door,” he says, “and the other one on a banana peel.”

Nothing in Brewer’s family history or lifestyle suggested that the reason she fell in the shower while reaching for a towel on the morning of Aug. 6, 2008, was a stroke. She was 39, worked out regularly, didn’t smoke and loved the outdoors. But a CAT scan at a local hospital revealed a blood clot on the right side of her brain.

The neurosurgeon on call attempted to restore blood flow with a Merci Retriever, a corkscrew-like wire used to extract clots from arteries. Not only was the device unable to snag the elusive clot, the Retriever nicked the wall of Brewer’s carotid artery during the procedure.

“My sister told me that [the neurosurgeon] was crying,” Brewer says. “He told her that he was sorry—and that I may bleed to death.”

In truth, the clot had been maneuvered just enough to allow sufficient blood flow, which likely prevented permanent paralysis. Meanwhile, the nicked artery would heal on its own, and, a week later, Brewer was transferred to Bethesda’s Cornell Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine in Boynton Beach.

Ten days after suffering the stroke, Brewer was working with a physical therapist to restore movement along her left side when suddenly her breathing became labored and her blood pressure dropped. Jenkins, an emergency medical services captain with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, suggested to the rehab physician that his girlfriend might have a pulmonary embolism.

Jenkins was right. Brewer had gone into cardiogenic shock, the result of clots that were damming up her vascular system. She was drowning in the blood pooling in her lungs, and her organs were shutting down. The clock was ticking.

“Most people die before they get to the operating room,” Jenkins says. “I told her family that they needed to say whatever they were going to say to her because this might be their last chance. I didn’t think she’d even make it to surgery.”

Once again, Brewer defied expectations. Shortly after midnight, Dr. Michael Carmichael, renowned cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Bethesda’s Heart Institute, removed a 12-inch clot—“I’ve never seen a blood clot that big,” he says—from Brewer’s pulmonary artery.

Incredibly, during the surgery, Carmichael discovered the probable cause of her stroke—an atrial septal defect, or a hole in her heart, which likely misdirected the original clot into the artery leading to the brain.

After two full months in the hospital, Brewer was discharged last Oct. 13. Two months later, she walked into her neurologist’s office and shook his hand—with her left hand. Today, she walks with a slight limp and still has dexterity problems that, for now, prevent her from returning to dental hygiene.

But just maybe, Brewer will tell you, she’s not meant to.

“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, but I’ve accepted that this is a miracle—God’s miracle,” Brewer says. “I shouldn’t be here. He has a plan for me. I just need to find out what it is.”

The details from police, so far, remain sparse: up to 10 possible attackers, up to 10 more witnesses, a 15-year-old victim and an attack that lasted more than two hours on the grounds of Richmond High School the night of the homecoming dance in the school gym.

The sad truth is that crimes like these, where witnesses fail to report or intervene in very public violent crimes, are well known to legal and psychological experts. The incidents, which happen more often than most people probably realize, illuminate troubling tendencies in society at large.

People also take cues from those around them, experts said. Just as one person yawning can inspire a roomful of yawns, so too can one person — or several — engaging in a crime encourage others to go along.

“People tend to look to other people to figure out what to do,” Hines said. “Among teenagers, this must be particularly strong.”

So far, police have arrested six men in the California case. Five are teenagers.

Sheri Parks, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, also suggested that the alleged rapists’ ages may have played a significant role the case.

“They give away a bit of their will to the crowd, since the crowd seems to view it as almost entertainment,” she said. “Then maybe even fear takes over. If you jump in and help her, what happens to you?”

Many teens today have had years of exposure to violent video games and media images, Parks said, which studies show desensitizes them to violence. Richmond police said they believe some of the witnesses took cell phone pictures of the girl’s ordeal – further proof of possible desensitization, Parks said.

“We’ve created this environment where adolescents can treat this awful stuff as spectacle,” she said.

The bystander effect isn’t new. One case frequently cited in the press and by experts is the 1964 murder of 28-year-old Catherine “Kitty” Genovese. Police tallied 38 witnesses who saw or heard part of her rape and murder in a New York City neighborhood. She screamed for help and the attack lasted more than half an hour — but no one called police until hours later. Many didn’t want to get involved, or they thought someone else had phoned authorities, according to media reports.

But cries for help continued to be ignored. Jodie Foster won an Oscar in 1989 for her role in the movie “The Accused,” which mirrored the real-life case of a woman who was raped by a group of men in a Massachusetts bar five years earlier. Customers kept the bartender from calling for help, according to media reports at the time.

In Connecticut this May, Angel Arce Torres, seen in the video below, died almost a year after a hit-and-run driver struck him on a Hartford street. The recording showed indifferent witnesses walking and driving by the man sprawled in the middle of the street.

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The law is ambiguous. In some jurisdictions, if a witness encourages the illegal act, he can be held just as responsible as the person who committed the physical crime. But failing to report the crime — out of fear or groupthink or any other reason — remains a gray area, with different jurisdictions differing on the legal responsibility of witnesses.

And the truth is, similar cases likely happen far more often than most people realize.

“We only hear about the celebrated cases,” Burke said. “What about the cases that occur every day and action isn’t taken?”

He’s witnessed the effect personally — in his own classroom as a college student in the 1970s. A girl in a hallway cried for help, and no one in his class moved. It was a setup, the professor said, and the students admitted they thought someone in the hall would help the girl. Others assumed that if an authority figure didn’t move to help — in this case, the professor — then they didn’t need to, either.

Later they claimed they knew all along that it was a hoax.

Sometimes people do step up. In the Massachusetts bar case, two men helped the victim as she staggered, mostly naked, from the bar. One of them, reliving the case earlier this month with The Herald News, said he picked up a rod and started after the men who were running from the bar to their cars.

In 2007, three female college soccer players said they saw a young girl on a bed in a room with a group of male baseball players. A ballplayer told them to mind their own business, the women told ABC News, but they broke down the door anyway and pulled the half-naked girl from the room. No charges were filed in the case. Prosecutors said there were too many witnesses who had too much to drink — so they couldn’t prove their case. But that spurred the women to continue speaking out.

“People always say, ‘If I was there I would’ve done something,’ ” Burke said. “Would you really? Would you really have done something? We don’t know.”

Kuwait's top court has decided that two women lawmakers are not required to wear an Islamic head cover, the official KUNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

by Eman Goma , Thursday, 29 October 2009

An Islamist voter had sought to force parliament members Aseel al-Awadhi and Rola Dashti to cover the heads, citing the Islamic holy book the Koran. Several male MPs had also protested.

“This is not just a victory for myself and my colleague Rola, but a victory for the constitution. Wearing the veil or not does not have an effect on our performance and dedication to serving citizens who elected us,” Awadhi told Reuters.

Women in the Gulf Arab state are not obliged by law to wear head covers although many do. The case was based on an article in election laws that say women candidates and voters should abide by Islam in general terms.

from America.Gov, by Jane Morse

A man in Guatemala lights one of many candles commemorating International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in 2008.

Washington – In Africa, violence against women is especially serious, and nowhere is it more horrific than in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting between factions has subjected women to unprecedented savagery — some 1,100 rapes are reported each month.

During an interview with Radio Okapi in Kinshasa August 10, Clinton condemned sexual violence in any context — as a tool of war or in a domestic setting. “There has to be strong prosecution and law enforcement and judiciary action to make it clear that this is unacceptable, that there is no excuse for it,” she said. Clinton also announced that the United States will provide $17 million to help survivors of sexual violence in the DRC.

ANTI-GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE PROGRAMS INTEGRATED INTO MANY U.S. AID PROGRAMS

The U.S. government, for more than three decades, increasingly has recognized violence against women as a human rights problem with far-reaching consequences. But a report released in 2008 by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) — the public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress — found that there was no U.S. governmentwide coordination of efforts to combat violence against women. The Obama administration, however, has sought to institute leadership and coordination by appointing Melanne Verveer, a longtime advocate of women’s rights and human rights, as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues.

There are approximately 350 government programs to aid victims of gender-based violence, spanning the work of eight agencies, the CRS found. Of these, 22 percent were operated in Africa, 21 percent in Europe/Eurasia, 17 percent in the Western Hemisphere, 14 percent in South/Central Asia, 14 percent in East Asia/the Pacific and 2 percent in the Near East. Ten percent were operated globally.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of State (DOS) are the primary U.S. entities that implement U.S. international programs to combat violence against women (VAW), according to the CRS. Other agencies and departments that run some programs with anti-VAW components include the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, Homeland Security and the Peace Corps.

Women in Italy hold placards denouncing violence against women.

CRS found that U.S. activities revolve around five key issues:

Global Health.  Recognizing that VAW often spreads sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) — a five-year, $15 billion governmentwide initiative to address HIV/AIDS globally — has earmarked funds for activities with a gender-based violence component. In addition, USAID missions in Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya and Guinea support programs to prevent female genital mutilation.

• Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees. Women and children often suffer the most during times of humanitarian crisis and/or armed conflict and are especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation. U.S. assistance in humanitarian and refugee settings generally incorporates programs to prevent violence against women. For example, U.S. programs to aid Afghan refugees in Pakistan and refugees throughout Africa contain elements aimed at protecting women and children in particular.

• Foreign Military Training. The issue of VAW awareness training and education for foreign military and peacekeeping troops was brought to worldwide attention in the 1990s by cases of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor and West Africa. Programs to combat violence against women are incorporated into training programs that the U.S. Department of Defense provides for international students and into foreign military training.

• Trafficking in Women and Girls. The International Labour Organization estimates that 98 percent of the women and girls caught up in human trafficking are forced into commercial sexual exploitation. U.S. agencies and departments support roughly 180 global and regional anti-trafficking programs in 90 countries.

• Legal and Political Rights. Among a plethora of U.S. government programs, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor funds initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa to support empowerment of women and youth. The USAID Office of Women in Development also supports programs to strengthen economic legal rights for women in Albania, Guatemala, Benin, South Africa and Rwanda.

THE INTERNATIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT

Although it is estimated that one in three women around the world will experience violence in her lifetime, many countries have no laws to prevent it. A report released by the U.N. secretary-general found that 102 United Nations member states have no specific laws on domestic violence.

The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would tie U.S. economic assistance to governments to their treatment of women.

In remarks delivered April 22 at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, Vice President Biden expressed his support for the legislation.

“I think we can affect that behavior [treatment of women] literally by the aid we give or withhold,” Biden said.

— Speaking out against gender-based violence was among the top priorities for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her recent visit to seven countries in Africa, but it is a topic the United States takes seriously worldwide.