Deutsche Welle (English edition)
UN: Only half of women in developing world have body autonomy
Whether it's sex, health care or using contraception, women in developing countries lack control over decisions affecting their bodies, the UN says. Attacks includes rape, forced sterilization and genital mutilation.
Almost half of women in 57 countries around the world are denied the freedom to decide on what to do with their own bodies, the United Nations said in a report on Wednesday. This includes issues around sex, contraception and health care.
The My Body is My Own study lists attacks on women, including rape, forced sterilization, virginity tests and genital mutilation.
The head of the UN's sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), Natalia Kanem, said: "In essence, hundreds of millions of women and girls do not own their own bodies. Their lives are governed by others."
Those other decision-makers may include partners, family members, society and government.
Rape 'not always prose
cuted and punished'
The underlying issues are often based on structural, societal problems, such as social taboos around sex (for women) and entrenched patriarchy, she said. This leads to male relatives having power over women's choices, Kanem said.
Kanem went on to say that when women are denied this power, it reinforces inequalities and perpetuates violence arising from gender discrimination, which is at the root of the problem.
"When control rests elsewhere, autonomy remains
perpetually out of reach," the report found.
Crimes and practices that violate a woman's bodily autonomy include "honor" killings, forced and early marriage, "virginity" tests and female genital mutilation. Forced pregnancy or abortion also violate a woman's power to make decisions concerning her body.
"Some violations, such as rape, may be criminalized, but then not always prosecuted and punished," Kanem said. "Other violations go unchallenged altogether because they are reinforced by community norms, practices and laws."
Despite constitutional guarantees of gender equality in many countries, the report says that on average, women globally enjoy only 75% of the legal rights of men.
COVID- 19 has worsened women's position
The pandemic has worsened the situation for millions of women, the agency found.
"What was previously bad is now worse with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in increasing sexual violence, more unintended pregnancies, and new barriers to health access, along with job and education losses," Kanem said.
UNFPA said in April 2020 that global lockdowns could lead to a 20% surge in domestic violence, as victims remain trapped at home with their abusers.
Researchers also predicted there could be an extra 13 million child marriages and another 2 million cases of female genital mutilation in the next decade as the pandemic stymies global efforts to end both practices.
Culture or location not limiting
No country has achieved total gender equality, but among those with the best track record are Sweden, Uruguay, Cambodia, Finland and the Netherlands.
Such diversity "shows you that this aspirational value doesn't really depend on culture or location," Kanem said, noting that the same is true at the bottom of the scale.
She added that governments have a lead role to play by fulfilling obligations under human rights treaties, as well as altering social, political, institutional and economic structures that reinforce gender inequalities.
mna/aw (Reuters, AFP)
count — all that's needed is a current email address.
All of Slutsky's posts were listed on bosslike.ru when DW began observing the site in midMarch. Within a half hour of appearing online, one of Slutsky's Facebook posts about the situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border also appeared on the site to be promoted. DW asked Slutsky in writing if he or any of his staff were paying for likes or reposts, but so far there hasn't been a reply.
Slutsky came to the attention of the wider Russian public in 2018 for allegedly sexually harassing several female journalists. But despite the public furor, he was cleared by the State Duma's ethics committee.
The Dossier Center, a nonprofit organization run by the self-exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is an organization which, in its own words, "tracks the criminal activity of various people associated with the Kremlin."
In an analysis published in early April, it said that the socalled Russian Peace Federation, a group headed by Slutsky, was asking US senators in Washington for grant money. At the same time, Slutsky's social media accounts were ruthlessly criticizing the United States and the European Union.
In a recent Twitter post, Slutsky said "it is not Russia that is pulling away from the EU but rather Brussels that is provoking
confrontations." To date, he has received at least 170 likes for this tweet. DW looked into the 78 public accounts that liked the tweet and found that all but one came for the same Russian promotion site. The profiles were also filled with retweets of other posts listed on the promotion site, and at least nine accounts have since been flagged and suspended by Twitter due to suspicious activity.
Politicians compete with influencers, startups for recognition
NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) has been looking into the issue of buying social media popularity since 2018. Rolf Fredheim, a researcher with the center, said that several accounts belonging to lesser-known local Russian politicians can be found on such promotional sites. He told DW that other prominent lawmakers in the State Duma are also on the list, but he was reluctant to single out any particular politician.
However, Fredheim pointed out that politicians remain relatively rare on such platforms. "Most often, it's the so-called influencers who resort to buying likes, who want to become known on Instagram or Facebook," he said, estimating that politicians make up only around 10% of the clients. "Often, it's also startups and businesses that want to appear to be bigger and more popular than they actually are."
On one of the promotional sites, DW uncovered a VKontakte profile belonging to Konstantin Malofeev, the Russian media czar and a confidant of President Vladimir Putin. In his posts, Malofeev —a supporter of Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine — lashes out against "the Kyiv junta" or the "godless EU" on a regular basis.
Another figure on the promotional site is Oleksandr Feldman, a current member of the Ukrainian parliament and a former ally of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014. Feldman is now on the campaign trail and hopes to become the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city in. Social media likes on his posts are going for more than a cent apiece.
Russia leads when it comes to social media manipulation
According to the NATO StratCom COE, Russian companies dominate the market when it comes to manipulating social media networks. In a report published in late 2020, the organization said that nearly all of the big software and infrastructure providers they had identified were of Russian origin.
It said that between 10% and 30% of all likes, reposts and views on these platforms could be attributed to fake social media activities. "But we have only been able to take snapshots of the current data, which makes accessing the full extent of the manipulation impossible," said the center's director, Janis Sarts.
In principle, manipulation is possible on almost all platforms, said Sarts. Twitter and Facebook are still considered the safest social networks; manipulation is particularly popular on these sites, so they do the most to prevent it.
"YouTube and Instagram, on the other hand, are not very well protected. In our estimation, however, TikTok is the most insecure of the five platforms we examined," Sarts told DW.
Social media manipulation ' undermines democratic process'
Paying for likes and subscribers doesn't violate any current laws, but Fredheim believes that the European regulating agencies responsible for such matters should prohibit such exchanges within the EU.
Sarts also thinks that big internet companies need to do a better job at combating bots and social media manipulation, and thinks networks that don't give users the ability to determine whether they are interacting with a bot or a real person should face heavy fines.
"Social media networks have become a place for public debate. And when manipulation is possible in such a place, this undermines the democratic process," he said.
The key to fighting these exchanges is to make them so expensive as to no longer be worthwhile, but Fredheim said it's going to be a long time before we get to that point.
"Facebook and Twitter have done a lot over the last few years and manipulation is a lot more difficult than it was in the past. But overall, it's still relatively easy — and pretty cheap."
esity researcher Jozef Cupka told the Czech newspaper Denik N. "If an overweight person becomes ill, there is a significantly higher chance of getting admitted to hospital. And if you are admitted to the hospital, there is a far higher chance of ending up in intensive care. And when you are in intensive care, there is a much higher risk of dying."
Cupka also sees coronavirus restrictions in the Czech Republic as part of the problem. He notes that exercise has been banned indoors, while alcohol consumption has simultaneously risen and more people have become overweight.
In mid-April, many restrictions are due to be relaxed — and, in combination with the spring weather, that means more opportunities for outdoor exercise, including more opportunities to lose weight.
Czech doctors are convinced: Every kilo counts in the fight against COVID-19.