Controversial abuse ad in Saudi Arabia
(CNN) — Last month, thousands of people in Saudi Arabia opened up their newspapers to find a full-page picture of a woman with a black eye clearly visible underneath her burqa.
Below the image ran the slogan in Arabic, “Some things can’t be covered”, and a list of phone numbers for local domestic abuse shelters. In a culture that tends to turn a blind eye to the issue of violence towards women, it was a shocking and powerful image.
“It’s a problem that’s been swept under the carpet for years,” says Scott Abbott, the creative director for Memac Ogilvy, the Riyadh-based agency responsible for the advert.
When Ogilvy approached the King Khalid Foundation, a charity that focuses on issues of advocacy and developing the country’s non-profit sector, they weren’t sure what type of reaction to expect.
“I think that there was always a real concern that, given the subject matter, it would never get through,” says Abbott.
A major push came from Saudi princess HRH Banderi A.R. Al Faisal, the foundation’s director. Though the campaign has captured the public’s attention, both within Saudi and abroad, where an English version has made the rounds online, Al Faisal says she doesn’t see the ad as shocking.
“My media and PR team were a bit nervous going into this, saying, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’” she admits. “I didn’t understand why. I don’t understand what is so controversial. Who will say, ‘Yes, it’s ok for women to be beaten up’?”
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Saudi women are legally reliant on the permission of their male guardians to travel freely, driving is still a socially contentious issue and there are no laws that protect victims of domestic abuse. According to Al Faisal, however, change is in the air.
“For several years, domestic abuse was sort of the elephant in the room. There was nowhere for a woman to go if she was abused because a system wasn’t set up to handle that,” she admits. Though the issue is still not completely out in the open, she notes the last few years has seen a rise in shelters that cater to female victims of violence.
It has been a watershed year for women’s rights in the conservative country. So far, women have been accepted into the government’s advisory Shura Council, given the right to vote, gained entry into a range of new professions (including engineering and law) and granted permission to have their own IDs without guardian permission.
Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, admits that though these measures are impressive, more needs to be done to protect women inside the country.
“There are no laws that protect women specifically. If, for example, a woman claims rape, and a man says it was consensual, she can face a counter charge of adultery,” he says.
Though there is currently no law that punishes a man for beating his wife, the King Khalid Foundation has prepared legislation that would do just that. In fact, it is the pending bill, which would decide the punitive measures abusers could face (a mix of imprisonment, financial restitution and loss of custody), that spurred the campaign to begin with.
Last year, the Shura Council pushed through similar legislation the foundation helped pen protecting the rights of children in abusive situations. Al Faisal is confident that the drafted legislation will meet with the same level of success.
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Coogle, however, says that Saudi still needs to overcome considerable social hurdles before the situation improves.
“Women who speak out about emotional abuse or neglect often face societal judgments. There is a prevalent attitude that if a man hits his wife, it’s acceptable, because she’s not being a good wife.”
Coogle points to a ten year old study in the Journal of Muslim Affairs where Saudi men were polled on whether they ever hit their wives — 53% answered yes.
Al Faisal agrees that the Saudi mindset has to change and notes that a major obstacle is the naturally guarded nature of the culture.
“This is a very private society, and we tend to try to deal with things discreetly. We do not air our dirty laundry in public, as families or as communities,” she says. “The negative side of that discretion is that it allows abusive behavior to thrive, because it is not stopped.”
A main goal of the campaign is to create a countrywide social dialogue. In that regard, says Abbott, the campaign has been successful.
“Outside of the two days of ads we ran, it’s been printed on the front page of national newspapers,” he says. “People are talking about it, and it’s been largely well-received.”
Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/12/world/meast/saudi-arabia-anti-domestic-abuse-campaign/index.html?eref=edition
Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NewsRipplesWeb/~3/woEe9scDq_c/controversial-abuse-ad-in-saudi-arabia
Deborah Knight, the grandmother of kidnapping victim Michelle Knight, participates in a community balloon-release service in Michelle’s honor on Thursday, May 9, in Cleveland. Four females were found in a home on Seymour Avenue in the Clark Fulton neighborhood on Monday. Since then, the neighborhood and the nation have wondered how they were held captive without anyone noticing sooner.
Authorities say Ariel Castro held three women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. DNA tests confirmed that he fathered a girl born to Berry, who was among those rescued, the Ohio attorney general’s office said Friday. His house, third from left, is now a crime scene.
57-year-old Ronice Dunn moved into the neighborhood in 1984. For years after Berry and DeJesus disappeared, she joined in neighborhood vigils and prayer groups for their safe return.
A building sits boarded up on Seymour Avenue. The Clark Fulton neighborhood is beset by nearly double-digit unemployment, and one in every five houses is in foreclosure.
The media set up tents near Castro’s home. 
Kinkel Avenue is a few blocks from Castro’s home. 
The house of Onil Castro’s two sons, where he was staying when he was arrested on Kinkel Avenue. He and his brother Pedro were arrested along with Ariel Castro, but later were released and not charged. 
“Why didn’t I notice anything? What should I have been looking for?” asked Mickie Wodgik, who spent years living across the street from Castro and, it turns out, the three missing women. 
Around the corner from Seymour Avenue, graffiti is written on an abandoned building.
A street view shows West 25th Street, which runs perpendicular to Seymour Avenue.
Cynthia Conor, who has lived in the same house for 38 years, often drank with Castro and and his brother Pedro, she said. Her father trained Castro for his school bus job.
A man stands on Clark Avenue in front of painted buildings. 
This boarded-up building sits across the street from Castro’s house.
Pastor Joe Abraham has ministered to many in this neighborhood for more than 25 years, including as the leader of Scranton Road Bible Church.
People hold balloons during a community balloon-release service in kidnapping victim Michelle Knight’s honor. 
Residents gather outside a community meeting at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Thursday, May 9, to talk about the kidnapping case in Cleveland. Balloons were released as part of the ceremony. Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight escaped on Monday, May 6, after being held captive for nearly a decade.
FBI agents and other law enforcement officers stand outside suspect Ariel Castro’s home in Cleveland on May 9. Castro, a former school bus driver, has been accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his house. He has also been charged with rape.
Castro hangs his head low while talking with his public defender, Kathleen DeMetz, during his arraignment on May 9.
Ada Colon prays during a vigil held in honor of the kidnapping victims in Cleveland on Wednesday, May 8.
Relatives of kidnapping victim Georgina “Gina” DeJesus hug after she returned to her parents’ home in Cleveland on May 8.
Friends and neighbors cheer as a car carrying Amanda Berry arrives at her sister’s house in Cleveland on May 8.
Gina DeJesus gives a thumbs up as she arrives at her family’s house in Cleveland on May 8.
Ariel Castro was charged on May 8 with kidnapping the three women.
The family house of Gina DeJesus has been decorated by well-wishers on Tuesday, May 7.
Friends and relatives gather in front of the family house of DeJesus on May 7.
Well-wishers visit the home of the sister of Amanda Berry on Monday, May 6.
Investigators remove evidence from the house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland where the three women were held.
An FBI forensics team meets outside the house where three women were held as they investigate the property.
An FBI forensics team member removes evidence from the house.
A relative of DeJesus brings balloons to the home of Amanda Berry’s sister in Cleveland on May 7.
Children hold a sign and balloons in the yard of Gina DeJesus’ family home in Cleveland on May 7.
Bystanders and media gather on May 7 along Seymour Avenue in Cleveland near the house where the three women were held captive.
A bystander shows the front page of The Plain Dealer newspaper to a friend outside of the house on Seymour Avenue on May 7.
Cleveland Deputy Chief of Police Ed Tomba, center, speaks at a news conference to address details of the developments.
The house where the three women were held captive in Cleveland was the home of Ariel Castro, who was arrested and is being held pending charges in the case.
FBI agents remove evidence from the house May 7.
A police officer stands in front of the broken front door of the house on May 7, where the kidnapped women escaped.
Neighbor Charles Ramsey talks to media as people congratulate him on helping the kidnapped women escape on Monday, May 6. He helped knock down the door after he heard screaming inside.
Amanda Berry vanished a few blocks from her Cleveland home on April 21, 2003. She was 16.
Georgina “Gina” DeJesus was last seen in Cleveland on April 2, 2004, on her way home from school. She was 14 when she went missing.
Michelle Knight was last seen on August 22, 2002, when she was 21.
On June 5, 2002, when Elizabeth Smart was 14, she was abducted from her bed, raped and held captive for nine months by Brian David Mitchell. On May 25, 2011, Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison.
Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian woman, was held prisoner in a basement for eight years from the time she was 10. Her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, beat her up to 200 times a week, manacled her to him as they slept and forced her to walk around half-naked as a domestic slave after kidnapping her in 1998. Kampusch escaped in August 2006. Priklopil committed suicide shortly thereafter.
Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted in 1991 from outside her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was held by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in a hidden compound of sheds along with the two daughters to whom she subsequently gave birth. Dugard and her daughters were found in 2009.
Shawn Damian Hornbeck spent more than four years with Michael Devlin, passing as his captor’s son in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri. Shawn was 15 when he was found in 2007 and reunited with his family. 
Elisabeth Fritzl was imprisoned and raped by her father, Josef Fritzl, for 24 years. Fritzl lured his daughter into the basement in 1984 when she was 18 years old. She had seven of his children. She was released at age 42 after her ill 19-year-old daughter was taken to the hospital and police called the family in for abuse suspicions. In 2009 Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in prison. 
Carlina White was abducted in 1987 from a Harlem hospital room. She learned her real identity 23 years later after finding her case online. She contacted the police after finding a baby picture that looked like her baby pictures on a missing children website. She was reconnected with her birth mother in 2011. White said she’d never felt like she belonged to the family who raised her.
Steve Carter also discovered he was a missing person after an online search. He had been adopted at age 4 from an orphanage in Honolulu. At 35 years old, he heard about White’s case and clicked on Missingkids.com and found an age progression photo of himself as an infant. It came to light that biological father, Mark Barnes, reported him missing more than three decades ago after his mother, Charlotte Moriarty, took him for a walk and didn’t return.
Deborah Knight, the grandmother of kidnapping victim Michelle Knight, participates in a community balloon-release service in Michelle’s honor on Thursday, May 9, in Cleveland. Four females were found in a home on Seymour Avenue in the Clark Fulton neighborhood on Monday. Since then, the neighborhood and the nation have wondered how they were held captive without anyone noticing sooner.
Authorities say Ariel Castro held three women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. DNA tests confirmed that he fathered a girl born to Berry, who was among those rescued, the Ohio attorney general’s office said Friday. His house, third from left, is now a crime scene.
An Amsterdam family’s collection of medicine and anatomy includes so-called mermaid fetuses and preserved conjoined twins among its 10,000 or so items. 
The museum states explicitly that it’s not suitable for kids. 
This London museum houses nearly 5,000 medical oddities including various random objects pulled from human bodies in the past 150 years. 
The museum is only open for special events. Halloween party, anyone? 
Behold: 2,000 examples of human disease, past and present. 
Only 1,800 specimens of the museum’s original 23,000 survived World War II bombings, and are now on display in Berlin. Visitors can see how National Socialists used science to justify arguments for race purification. 
Horses, monkeys and even human fetuses are on display at this anatomy collection that was originally started for veterinary students in the 18th century. Don’t plan for lunch afterward.
This traditional Unani medicine box is one of the displays the Ib Sina Museum is most proud of. 
For now, the display of 150 organs dating to the 19th century at this Canadian academic museum is solely available for viewing online. 
This intriguing parasite museum first began exhibiting its skin-crawling, skin-burrowing creatures in order to raise public awareness following World War II. 
The main attraction here is a two-headed dog. 
Sorry, no gruesome specimens here. Just a detailed visual history of Korean medicine. 
