👋 Yumalundi!*
Welcome to Friday, where Joe Biden announces U.S. plans to build a temporary humanitarian port off Gaza, Sweden is now officially a member of NATO, and the world marks International Women’s Day. For that occasion, Worldcrunch Today also features an analysis by Samiya Al-Aghbari in Arabic-language independent digital media Daraj, in which she dissects the ways Yemen’s Houthis are emulating Iranian fundamentalists in their repressive laws to control women.
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*\[\*Ngunnawal, New South Wales and ACT, Australia\]*
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Economic violence against women, an Italian story of abuse and liberation
International Women's Day this year shines a light on the reality that the plague of violence against women is not only physical, but also comes in the form of economical subjugation. One Italian woman shares her struggle in Turin-based daily La Stampa.
"'Stay home,' he said, 'take care of the children, I'll take care of the rest.' I agreed to make it work, I didn't think it would become my cage," remembers Giusy Arricchiello, 44. She was 22 years old when she married the man who would be her husband for nearly two decades. Their union was marked by an unwritten pact: she would stop working to devote herself to her family, and he would provide economic security.
The plans, however, did not include the abuse she suffered in silence for years because she had nowhere to run. "He turned out to be violent right away, but I was young. And the first few shoves I didn't mind," she says. "Then when the pushing turned to beating, it was already too late. I had two small children, no home and no job. Where could I go? On the street, under a bridge?"
Arricchiello's is not an isolated case. There are many women in Italy who, in addition to physical and psychological violence, also suffer economic violence — defined by the UN as "when an individual denies his intimate partner access to financial resources, typically as a form of abuse or control or in order to isolate her or to impose other adverse consequences to her well-being."
These women are double victims of partners who use every means of overpowering and prevaricating, even money. The blackmail of lack of livelihood thus becomes a weapon in the hands of abusive men.
In this context, the UN is rallying behind the call to "Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress," as the theme of this year's International Women's Day, March 8. The idea of educating women about money and finance can work several ways: for women, it means they can stand for themselves without fearing the unknown; for the world, it means "turbocharging a future where everyone in society can thrive, creating a world of boundless opportunity and empowerment for all," UN Women writes on its website.
According to a recent Ipsos survey for the Italian NGO WeWorld, economic violence is more widespread than some may think: nearly half (49%) of the women surveyed said they had experienced economic violence at least once in their lives.
That figure rises to 67% in the case of divorced or separated women. In the latter case, at least one in four women tells of having had to submit to financial decisions made by her partner, without having been consulted beforehand.
"Economic violence has precise roots in male-centric and patriarchal sociocultural systems that nurture power asymmetries," said Martina Albini, coordinator of WeWorld's study center. "And it affects more people who suffer cumulative forms of discrimination: women who are very old or very young, with disabilities or from migrant backgrounds."
The recorded cases are many and varied, ranging from outright economic deprivation to the husband's accumulation of debt in his wife's name to job sabotage. First, women are asked to stop working, then strategies are put in place to make keeping employment and an independent resource impossible. Finally, it leads to financial control, which also becomes a way of restricting every aspect of female partners' lives. [...]
— Read the full article by Eleonora Camilli for La Stampa, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“The historic process is over — Sweden is now a member of NATO,” titles Swedish daily Göteborgs-Posten, as the Nordic country officially becomes the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance. Along with Finland which joined NATO last year, Sweden has abandoned longstanding military neutrality due to rising concerns over Russian aggression in Europe after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. “Sweden’s accession makes NATO stronger, Sweden safer and the whole alliance more secure,” said the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. French writer Pierre Haski asked last year if this was a case of Putin’s self-fulfilling prophecy.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• U.S. humanitarian port in Gaza criticized as “distraction”: U.S. President Joe Biden announced the building of a “temporary pier” off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast to receive ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters. This emergency mission has been criticized, notably by Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary general of the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) political party, as an attempt to “divert attention from the real issue here, which is that 700,000 people are starving in north Gaza now.” Read more on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza from Arabic-language news media Daraj, translated and adapted in English by Worldcrunch.
• Hong Kong publishes new national security law draft with stricter jail terms: A new Hong Kong national security law draft has been published, containing tougher penalties for sedition and state secrets cases, together with encompassing treason, espionage and external interference. The bill is slated to be passed into law before mid-April, and critics warn that it will further tighten Beijing’s control over freedom of expression and the media on the island territory 25 years after the handover to China from the UK.
• U.S. embassy in Moscow on high alert over terror attack threat: The U.S. embassy in Russia’s capital has announced through its website that unspecified “extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” and urged U.S. citizens to avoid concerts and crowded places “over the next 48 hours.” The announcement comes just hours after Russian security services said they had foiled plans for an attack at a Moscow synagogue by a cell from the Afghan arm of ISIS.
• Haiti extends state of emergency because of spreading of gang violence: Haiti’s government extended a state of emergency until April 3 in the capital region due to gang violence that has forced thousands of people to flee their homes and businesses and schools to shutter. The surge in violence began last weekend as thousands of inmates escaped prisons.
• Nigerian students abducted from school by gunmen: Gunmen attacked a school in Nigeria, abducting 287 students in the second mass kidnapping in the West African nation in less than a week. Abductions of students from schools in northern Nigeria have become increasingly common in Nigeria since 2014.
• Ireland votes on rephrasing “women in the home” clause in the constitution: Irish citizens are voting Friday on whether to remove the “women in the home” clause from its Constitution. Written in 1937, the Constitution credits women with contributing to society through housework and child care, and calls on the state to “endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home.” This referendum has garnered less enthusiasm than recent ballots on the abortion rights and same-sex message, with some women’s activists saying childcare and work conditions are far more relevant.
• Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama dies: Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama, creator of the hugely popular Dragon Ball series, has died from acute subdural hematoma, at the age of 68.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
230 million
The number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) has increased by 15% in the past eight years, according to a new report by UNICEF, despite progress against the practice in some countries. The number of survivors from these mutilations, which include partial or total removal of the clitoris as well as the labia minora, has topped 230 million worldwide — with Africa registering the highest number (144 million). “It is indeed bad news. This is a huge number, a number that is bigger than ever before,” said Claudia Coppa, lead author of the report.
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📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Inside the Houthi's method for controlling women, Iranian-style
Using the methods of the Islamic regime in Tehran, the Yemeni fundamentalist insurgents have imposed repressive laws to control women's movement and behavior, reports Samiya Al-Aghbari in Arabic-language independent digital media Daraj.
🚫 Since the Houthis rebels seized the Yemeni capital a decade ago, they have aimed to control all walks of life in areas they seize. And women have been their primary target. Over the years, a range of new types of restrictions have been imposed on women who had already long been marginalized in the Arab nation. Such restrictions have turned the already shrinking public space in Houthi areas into an aggressive zone for women. This system has been enforced with inflammatory rhetoric, sermons at local mosques and their Iranian-style morality police known as "Zainabiat.”
🚨 A 2023 report by the Human Rights Ministry of the internationally recognized government described the Houthi decisions as “gender-based violence." The reports cited “Zainabiat” which the Houthis created in 2014. The secretive police corps, which includes 500 women, used to hound women and girls in schools, universities, parks and transportation to implement the Houthis restrictions on the movement of women. The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms documented 1,444 incidents of violence by the Zainabiat in 2022.
♀️ Maysaa Shuja al-Din, a researcher at the Sana'a Center for Studies, said the Houthis are not only a group seeking power, but rather "a totalitarian regime that seeks to impose values and concepts on society. They want to reshape the whole society." She said the Houthis’ relationship with women is linked to their ideological character as an extremist religious group which has grown concerned about women’s activities, including their work with charities and relief groups.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“My predecessor failed the most basic duty any president owes the American people — the duty to care.”
— U.S. President Joe Biden delivered a raucous third State of the Union address, taking repeated swipes at his “predecessor” Donald Trump without ever mentioning his name, and covering the broad themes of his re-election campaign. Biden criticized the former president for his handling of COVID-19 and said that he sought to “bury the truth” about the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack. The U.S. president also discussed immigration, abortion, the economy, Gaza, while working to quell voter concerns about his age and job performance. “I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. And when you get to my age certain things become clearer than ever before,” Biden said.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
Thousands of women gathered for a march in Ankara, Turkey, to mark International Women's Day and denounce violence against women. Women across the world organized demonstrations to demand equal pay, access to healthcare, justice for victims of gender-based violence and education for girls. — Photo: Bilal Seckin/SOPA Images/ZUMA
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• A Ukrainian Soldier's Lessons On War, Life And Stress Eating — UKRAINSKA PRAVDA
• The Biden-Trump Rematch, European Nightmares And Macron's "Cowardice" Warning — FRANCE INTER
• La Cornue, How A French Kitchen Range Became The Hot New Luxury Must-Have — LES ECHOS
✍️ Newsletter by Agnese Tonghini and Anne-Sophie Goninet**
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