With the State Department urging a US court to dismiss a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corporation for its operations in Indonesia, the Bush administration is making its second bid this year to restrict international corporate responsibility for human rights violations abroad, the New York Times reported today. The suit alleges that, in hiring the Indonesian […]
Policy experts and Bush administration officials have conceded privately that President Bush’s policy in Afghanistan is “high on the rhetoric of commitment and low on the level of engagement,” the Washington Post reported today. This policy includes a continued refusal to expand the role of international peacekeeping forces outside Kabul as well as limited US […]
For the first time since its enactment last October, a Florida adoption law that requires pregnant women considering adoption to publish intimate details about their sexual history — purportedly to identify the father — was challenged by six women claiming it unconstitutionally violates their privacy. The new law, pushed by Democratic State Senator Skip Campbell, […]
The Iowa Supreme Court granted a stay to Planned Parenthood this week, temporarily suspending a requirement that Planned Parenthood’s Storm Lake Clinic turn over the names and addresses of all women who had a positive pregnancy test between August 15, 2001 and May 30, 2002. The state Supreme Court granted the stay in order to […]
A Cambodian court found 10 Vietnamese girls, ages 12 to 18, guilty of illegal immigration to Cambodia, despite the fact that human rights activists and the women themselves claim the girls were smuggled into the country and forced into prostitution. The girls were sentenced to jail terms of two to three months followed by deportation […]
Two DynCorp employees won recent legal victories after the defense-contracting firm fired them for reporting co-workers involved in sex-slave trade in Bosnia. The court actions, which took place in England and Fort Worth, Texas, suggest that the company did not move aggressively enough when reports of sex trafficking emerged in 1999, according to Salon.com. While […]
Permanent protection orders effectively reduce the likelihood of further assaults on women by their abusive partners, according to a study in this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Researchers at the University of Washington and the Harbor view Injury Prevention and Research Center in Seattle reviewed the records of 2,691 […]
The Bush administration is asking other nations to promise that they will not press charges against American peacekeepers and other personnel through the new International Criminal Court (ICC). So far, Romania and Israel have agreed that they will not send Americans to the ICC, which began operation last month to prosecute individuals for war crimes […]
A Florida Circuit Court ruled yesterday that Florida’s voucher program violates its state constitution by allowing public money to go to parochial schools. Florida’s program, one of three in the nation that involves religious schools, was initiated by Gov. Jeb Bush and supported on the federal level by his brother, President George W. Bush. Gov. […]
The year of the woman governor could begin today as two states hold primary elections in which women are front-runners for the governor spot. With 36 governor spots open this year, 14 women are making a bid for the position that has typically trailed far behind US Congress in terms of women elected. “People view […]
Following recent efforts to raise public awareness and increase accessibility of emergency contraception (EC), the San Francisco Health Plan (SFHP) has become the first community health program in California to subsidize the required pharmacist consultation fee for EC. Although California is one of two states where EC is available without a prescription, pharmacists are still […]
Citing a woman’s legal right to an abortion protected under Roe vs Wade, a Pennsylvania judge reversed a decision today that had barred a woman from obtaining a legal abortion. Common Pleas Judge Michael Conahan dissolved a temporary injunction forbidding the woman from ending her pregnancy and dismissed the lawsuit filed by her former boyfriend, […]
A power struggle between Afghanistan’s newly elected president and the nation’s defense minister has raised concerns that the situation is growing increasingly unstable for the newly created national government. For the past six months, Hamid Karzai, the US-backed president, did little to challenge Mohammed Fahim, the defense minister who served as a military leader for […]
Less than a month after the Vatican called the ordination of women to priesthood “an affront to the dignity of women, whose specific role in the Church and society is distinctive and irreplaceable,” seven women priests were excommunicated for failing to repent by the Church-issued July 22 deadline. Last month, the Vatican reasserted its policy […]
In the wake of four recent murders of wives of U.S. soldiers at the Fort Bragg military base, the Senate has approved two amendments to the Defense Department Appropriations bill, both of which will address domestic violence problems within the military community. Senator Paul Wellstone and Senator Barbara Boxer, both champions of women’s rights, sponsored […]
In a precedent setting injunction awarded earlier this week, the United States District Court of Northern Illinois found that Cook County’s Forest Preserve District law enforcement agency had engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against its female employees. Plaintiff Cynthia Spina filed employment discrimination charges against the agency in 1997, […]
A Butler County, Ohio sheriff’s deputy was convicted Thursday of kidnapping and raping a 19-year-old woman. A judge ruled that Kirk Kash, 38, grabbed the woman’s neck and forced her to perform oral sex on him after he discovered her having consensual sex with an 18-year-old man outside a Forest Fair Mall nightclub. Kash, who […]
The Los Angeles Police Department has admitted that inadequate training caused the destruction of DNA evidence from over 1,100 sexual assault cases. Detectives allegedly ordered the destruction of all DNA evidence over six years old because they were unaware that the California statute of limitations for rape had been extended from six years to ten […]
After a study published in the July 26 edition of the Journal of Biological Psychiatry concluded that mifepristone is effective in treating psychotic depression, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced recently that the drug has been put on fast-track approval – it is the first drug for a psychiatric condition to be fast tracked. […]
California may join a growing movement in the US to grant paid leave for workers. A California bill that recently passed the state Senate and awaits passage in the Assembly, would allow more than 12 million workers in California to receive paid leave from their jobs to care for sick relatives or bond with new […]
