Argentine Mom Susana Trimarco Saves Hundreds of Sex Slaves In Quest to Find Her Daughter | Yahoo! News via AP

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LA PLATA, Argentina (AP) — Susana Trimarco was a housewife who fussed over her family and paid scant attention to the news until her daughter left for a doctor’s appointment and never came back.

After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation into a tip that the 23-year-old was abducted and forced into sex slavery. Soon, Trimarco was visiting brothels seeking clues about her daughter and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives.

What began as a one-woman campaign a decade ago developed into a movement and Trimarco today is a hero to hundreds of women she’s rescued from Argentine prostitution rings. She’s been honored with the “Women of Courage” award by the U.S. State Department and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Nov. 28. Sunday night, President Cristina Fernandez gave her a human rights award before hundreds of thousands of people in the Plaza de Mayo.

But years of exploring the decadent criminal underground haven’t led Trimarco to her daughter, Maria de los Angeles “Marita” Veron, who was 23 in 2002 when she disappeared from their hometown in provincial Tucuman, leaving behind her own 3-year-old daughter Micaela.

“I live for this,” the 58-year-old Trimarco told The Associated Press of her ongoing quest. “I have no other life, and the truth is, it is a very sad, very grim life that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Her painful journey has now reached a milestone.

Publicity over Trimarco’s efforts prompted Argentine authorities to make a high-profile example of her daughter’s case by putting 13 people on trial for allegedly kidnapping Veron and holding her as a sex slave in a family-run operation of illegal brothels. Prostitution is not illegal in Argentina, but the exploitation of women for sex is.

The seven men and six women on trial plead “not guilty” and their lawyers have said there’s no physical proof supporting the charges against them. The alleged ringleaders denied knowing Veron and said that women who work in their brothels do so willingly. Prosecutors have asked for up to 25 years imprisonment for those convicted.

Trimarco was the primary witness during the trial, testifying for six straight days about her search for her daughter. The road to trial was a long one.

Frustrated by seeming indifference to her daughter’s disappearance, Trimarco began her own probe and found a taxi driver who told of delivering Veron to a brothel where she was beaten and forced into prostitution. The driver is among the defendants.

With her husband and granddaughter in tow, Trimarco disguised herself as a recruiter of prostitutes and entered brothel after brothel searching for clues. She soon found herself immersed in the dangerous and grim world of organized crime, gathering evidence against police, politicians and gangsters.

“For the first time, I really understood what was happening to my daughter,” she said. “I was with my husband and with Micaela, asleep in the backseat of the car because she was still very small and I had no one to leave her with.”

The very first woman Trimarco rescued taught her to be strong, she said.

“It stuck with me forever: She told me not to let them see me cry, because these shameless people who had my daughter would laugh at me, and at my pain,” Trimarco said. “Since then I don’t cry anymore. I’ve made myself strong, and when I feel that a tear might drop, I remember these words and I keep my composure.”

Micaela, now 13, has been by her grandmother’s side throughout, contributing to publicity campaigns against human trafficking and keeping her mother’s memory alive.

More than 150 witnesses testified in the trial, including a dozen former sex slaves who described brutal conditions in the brothels.

Veron may have been kidnapped twice, with the complicity of the very authorities who should have protected her, according to Julio Fernandez, who now runs a Tucuman police department devoted to investigating human trafficking. He testified that witnesses reported seeing Veron at a bus station three days after she initially disappeared, and that a police officer from La Rioja, Domingo Pascual Andrada, delivered her to a brothel there. Andrada, now among the defendants, denied knowing any of the other defendants, let alone Veron.

Other Tucuman police testified that when they sought permission in 2002 to search La Rioja brothels, a judge made them wait for hours, enabling Veron’s captors to move her. That version was supported by a woman who had been a prostitute at the brothel: She testified that Veron was moved just before police arrived. The judge, Daniel Moreno, is not on trial. He denied delaying the raid or having anything to do with the defendants.

Some of the former prostitutes said they had seen Veron drugged and haggard. One testified Veron felt trapped and missed her daughter. Another said she spotted Veron with dyed-blonde hair and an infant boy she was forced to conceive in a rape by a ringleader. A third thought Veron had been sold to a brothel in Spain — a lead reported to Interpol.

Trimarco’s campaign to find her daughter led the State Department to provide seed money for a foundation in Veron’s name. To date, it has rescued more than 900 women and girls from sex trafficking. The foundation also provides housing, medical and psychological aid, and it helps victims sue former captors.

Argentina outlawed human trafficking in 2008, thanks in large part to the foundation’s work. A new force dedicated to combating human trafficking has liberated nearly 3,000 more victims in two years, said Security Minister Nilda Garre, who wrote a newspaper commentary saying the trial’s verdict should set an example.

“Human trafficking was an invisible problem until the Marita (Veron) case,” Garmendia said. “The case has put it on the national agenda.”

But Trimarco wants more. “I had hoped they would break down and say what they’d done with Marita,” she said.

“I feel here in my breast that she is alive and I’m not going to stop until I find her,” Trimarco said. “If she’s no longer in this world, I want her body.”

Trial Update: The much awaited yearlong verdict was handed down Tuesday, December 11. A three judge panel cleared all 13 defendants accused of kidnapping Marita Veron and forcing her into prostitution amid claims of corruption. Political leaders have called for the judges to be impeached following yesterday’s ruling in the case of missing Maria de los Angeles ‘Marita’ Veron. The outcome is a setback for Argentina’s efforts to combat sex trafficking, which began largely as a result of Susana Trimarco’s one-woman, decade-long quest to find her missing daughter.  Trimarco’s search exposed an underworld of organized crime figures who operate brothels with protection from authorities across Argentina.

Reprint: Argentine Mom Rescues Hundreds of Sex Slaves | Yahoo! News via AP

Related: Argentine See Protests After Marita Veron Verdict | BBC

Argentina’s Susana Trimarco: One Mother’s Fight Against Human Trafficking -By Scott Johnson | The Daily Beast

La Fundación María de los Ángeles (The Mary of Angels Foundation)

 

Teen Activist Malala Yusafzai, 14, Shot by Taliban for Demanding Education for Girls | Al Jazeera

Malala Yusafzai

Malala Yusafzai, a 14-year-old education rights activist, has been shot and injured while on her way home from school in Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley region of northwest Pakistan.

She is being treated at Peshawar’s Combined Military Hospital, where a bullet has been removed from her skull. She remains in critical condition, family members told Al Jazeera.

Ahmed Shah Yusafzai, Malala’s uncle, said there was “strict security inside and outside the hospital”, after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan’s national airline has placed an air ambulance on standby to take Yusafzai abroad for treatment if needed, government sources have revealed, but officials are wary of lengthy travel times given her unstable condition.

Yusafzai was with one other girl, taking a school van home following an examination at the Khushal public school, witnesses told Al Jazeera of the shooting.

Unidentified men stopped the vehicle, asking if it was the transport from Khushal school. When told that it was, one man asked: “Where is Malala?”

As she was identified, the assailant reportedly drew a pistol and shot Yusafzai in the head and the neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.

“The man started firing a handgun [...] then I don’t know what happened to me and found myself in hospital,” said Shazia Ramazan, a schoolmate of Yusafzai who was shot in the hand.

Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex in Mingora said the bullet penetrated Yusafzai’s skull but missed her brain, leaving her out of immediate danger.

Pakistani Taliban Proudly Claims Responsibility for Shooting

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, Taliban spokesman, told reporters that the group had repeatedly warning Yusafzai to stop speaking out against them.

“She is a Western-minded girl. She always speaks against us. We will target anyone who speaks against the Taliban,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“We warned her several times to stop speaking against the Taliban and to stop supporting Western non-governmental organizations, and to come to the path of Islam.”

President Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the attack, but said it would not shake Pakistan’s resolve to fight insurgents or the government’s determination to support women’s education. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf called Yusafzai “a daughter of Pakistan”.

Private schools in the Swat valley have shut their doors today, in protest at the attack, though government schools are open as per their normal routine. Further demonstrations against the Taliban are also expected in the Swat district later today.

The US State Department also spoke out against the shooting.

“Directing violence at children is barbaric. It’s cowardly. And our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded, as well as their families,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.

The local chapter of the TTP, led by Maulana Fazlullah, controlled much of Swat from 2007 to 2009, but were ousted by an army offensive in July 2009.

Local reports indicate, however, that the group was only driven into the surrounding areas, rather than being wiped out, and it has since staged a resurgence.

Tuesday’s shooting in broad daylight in Mingora, the main town of the valley, raises serious questions about security more than three years after the army claimed to have crushed the local Taliban.

Yusafzai rose to international prominence in 2009, after writing a diary – under a pen-name – for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban.

She had famously stood against the armed group’s attempts to stop girls from going to school, and was awarded the National Peace Award for Youth. The international children’s advocacy group KidsRights Foundation nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize, making her the first Pakistani girl put forward for the award.

Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls who were being denied an education by the Taliban and other extremist groups across northwest Pakistan, where the government has been fighting such groups since 2007.

She was 11 years old when she wrote the blog on the BBC Urdu website, which at the time was anonymous. She also featured in two New York Times documentaries.

Diary Extract

In a 2011 BBC news report she read out an extract of her diary that gave a sense of the fear she endured under the Taliban.

“I was very much scared because the Taliban announced yesterday that girls should stop going to schools,” she said.

“Today our head teacher told the school assembly that school uniform is no longer compulsory and from tomorrow onwards, girls should come in their normal dresses. Out of 27, only 11 girls attended the school today.”

London-based rights group Amnesty International condemned Tuesday’s “shocking act of violence” against a girl bravely fighting for an education.

“This attack highlights the extremely dangerous climate human rights activists face in northwestern Pakistan, where particularly female activists live under constant threats from the Taliban and other militant groups,” it said.

Photo: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s information minister, said Yusafzai had been targeted as “an icon of peace”, calling for a sweeping military offensive against all anti-state fighters in northwest Pakistan.

Asked if Malala would continue her work if she recovered, Ahmed Shah Yusafzai, her uncle, told Al Jazeera: “Yes, of course. She always raises her voice in favour of girl’s education, and she was going to establish a foundation named after her name – Malala Education Foundation – and she wanted to work for those children who are not able to go to the school.

Reprint: Teenage Rights Activist Shot in Pakistan | Al Jazeera

Related: Malala is the ‘Daughter of Pakistan’ -By Hameedullah Khan | Al Jazeera

My Conversations with Malala Yousafazi, The Girl Who Stood Up to the Taliban -By Owais Tohid | CS Monitor (+Video)

Support the Malala Fund | Vital Voices

Malala Yousufzai Family Fund | Friends of Malala (Indiegogo)

 

Another Day, Another Massacre In Syria (Video)

Activists say another massacre has taken place in Syria just days after nearly 100 people were killed in Houla.

This time, at least 86 people are said to have been killed by pro-Assad militias in and around al-Qubayr in Marzaf district in Hama province.

Al Jazeera’s Tarek Bazley reports.

 

Elusive Equality: Why Arab Women Remain Voiceless| AJE (Video)

Amal al-Malki, a Qatari author, says the Arab Spring has so far failed women in their struggle for equality. She talks about women’s rights in the Arab world, political and social empowerment and Islamic feminism.

Related: Saving Noor: Women’s Rights in Iraq| United Nations (Video)

 

Afghan Child Bride Tortured for Six Months | Al Jazeera (Video)

An Afghan child bride is recovering in hospital after being held captive and tortured for six months by her husband’s family. While her case is extreme, it is still often acceptable in Afghan culture for a husband to hit his wife.

Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith reports from Kabul.

Related: “Opium Brides” | FRONTLINE PBS (Video)

 

Situation Tense in South Sudan | Al Jazeera (Video)

Thousands of villagers in South Sudan are hiding in the bush, waiting for UN and government troops to stop a tribal conflict, which officials fear may have left scores of people dead over the weekend.

Armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe have marched on the remote town of Pibor in Jonglei state, home to the rival Murle people, who they blame for cattle raiding.

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa travelled to the troubled village of Pibor in South Sudan and sent this report.

Related: Ban Voices Deep Concern at Ethnic Tensions in South Sudan | UN News

 

Killing of Syrian Children Provokes Outrage | Al-Jazeera

The United Nations says hundreds of Syrian children have been tortured and killed since anti-government protests began in March.

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh met one family whose teenage boy went missing after attending a rally. The family has since fled across the border to al-Mafraq, in Jordan, where they are seeking justice for the brutal killing of their son.

 

Egyptian Court Orders Military to End Virginity Tests | BBC & Euronews

A Cairo court has ordered forced virginity tests on female detainees in military prisons to be stopped.

The court made the decision after a case was brought by protester Samira Ibrahim. She accused the Egyptian army of forcing her to undergo a virginity test after she was arrested during a protest in Tahrir Square in March.

Human rights organizations say the Egyptian military has used the practice widely as a punishment.

“The court orders that the execution of the procedure of virginity tests on girls inside military prisons be stopped,” judge Aly Fekry, head of Cairo administrative court said.

The ruling was greeted by cheers from hundreds of activists inside the courtroom. Activists had demanded that the authorities prosecute anyone responsible for subjecting protesters to such tests.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian general was quoted as acknowledging that the military had conducted such tests, saying that they were used so women would not later claim they had been raped by authorities.

Human rights groups say such tests are a degrading form of abuse and the general’s justification a legal absurdity.

Related: Activist: Verdict Has Shamed Military | Al-Jazeera (Video)

 

Egypt: Thousands March to Protest Military Violence Against Women | The Telegraph

Around 10,000 women have marched through central Cairo demanding Egypt’s ruling military step down in an unprecedented show of outrage over soldiers who dragged women by the hair and stomped on them, and stripped one half-naked in the street.

Tuesday’s dramatic protest, which grew as the women marched from Tahrir Square through downtown, was fueled by the widely circulated images of abuses of women. Many of the marchers touted the photo of the young woman whose clothes were partially pulled off by troops, baring her down to her blue bra, as she struggled on the ground.

“Tantawi stripped your women naked, come join us,” the crowd chanted to passers-by, referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council that has ruled Egypt since the Feb. 11 fall of Hosni Mubarak. “The daughters of Egypt are a red line,” they chanted.

Even before the protest was over, the military council issued an unusually strong statement of regret for what it called “violations” against women – a quick turnaround after days of dismissing the significance of the abuse.

The council expressed “deep regret to the great women of Egypt” and affirmed “its respect and total appreciation” for women and their right to protest and take part in political life. It promised it was taking measures to punish those responsible for violations.

The statement suggested the military’s fear that attacks on women could wreck its prestige at home and abroad, which has already been heavily eroded by its fierce, five-day-old crackdown on pro-democracy protesters demanding it surrender power. The ruling generals have campaigned to keep the public on its side in the confrontation, depicting the activists as hooligans and themselves as the honorable protectors of the nation, above reproach.

In unusually harsh words, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday accused the Egyptian security forces and extremists of specifically targeting women.

“This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people,” she said.

In a possibly significant hint of new flexibility, the council also said in its statement Tuesday that it was prepared to discuss any initiatives to help the security of the country. In recent days, a number of political factions have pressed the military to hand over power by February, rather than June, when it promised to hold presidential elections.

In the past, police in Mubarak’s regime were accused of intentionally humiliating women in protest crackdowns. But images of women being abused by soldiers were particularly shocking in a society that is deeply conservative and generally reveres the military. The independent press has splashed its front pages with pictures of soldiers chasing women protesters, including ones in conservative headscarves and full face-veils, beating them with sticks and clubs and dragging them by their hair. The crackdown has left 14 people dead – all but one by gunshots – and hundreds wounded.

The images of the half-stripped protester, whose identity is not known, clearly had a powerful resonance. A banner showing a photo of her on the asphalt – one soldier yanking up her black robes and shirt, another poised to stomp on her chest – was put up in Tahrir Square for passing drivers to see.

“The girl dragged around is just like my daughter,” said Um Hossam, a 54-year old woman in traditional black dress and a headscarf at Tuesday’s march. “I am a free woman, and attacking this woman or killing protesters is just like going after one of my own children.”

Ringed by a protective chain of men, the women marched from Tahrir to the Journalists’ Syndicate, several blocks away, chanting slogans demanding the military council step down.

Many accused the military of intentionally targeting women to scare them and their male relatives from joining protests against the generals. Previously, the military has implied women who joined protests were of loose morals. In March, soldiers subjected detained female protesters to humiliating tests to determine if they were virgins.

“They are trying to break women’s spirits, starting with the virginity tests. They want to break their dignity so that they don’t go out and protest,” Maha Abdel-Nasser, an engineer who joined the march, said.

Two sisters, Yomna and Tasneem Shams, said they never took part in previous protests because their parents wouldn’t allow them. But they happened to be downtown Tuesday and spontaneously joined the women’s march.

“No one should ever be beaten for expressing their opinion,” Yomna, 19, said. “I am proud I took part in today’s protest. I feel I can tell my kids I have done something for them in the future.”

Some also criticized Islamic parties, which stayed out of the anti-military protests and did not participate in Tuesday’s march – even though religious conservatives often tout their defense of “women’s honor.” Pro-democracy activists accused them of being worried about anything that might derail ongoing, multistage parliamentary elections, which the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and the more conservative Al-Nour Party have dominated so far.

“This is a case of honor. But they clearly don’t care for honor or religion. They now care only about their political interests,” said Mohammed Fawaz, one of the men in the protective chain around the marching women.

The protest also is likely to deepen the predicament of the military as critics began to talk openly about putting them on trial for abuses, and politicians are floating ideas for their exit, perhaps in return for immunity.

Emad Gad, a newly elected lawmaker, said that without guarantees they would not be prosecuted, the generals won’t hand over power by the end of June as promised. Foremost on their minds, he said, was the fate of Mubarak, who ended in court facing charges that carry the death penalty after ruling Egypt for nearly 30 years.

“They didn’t get clear assurances and that is why they try diabolical tactics to make sure they get these guarantees,” he said, citing the military’s attempt to enshrine in the next constitution language that would shield it from civilian scrutiny.

“We have to address their fears, their interests and future role,” he said.

The public and many activists welcomed the military when it took power from Mubarak in February. But relations have deteriorated sharply since as the democracy activists accused the generals of hijacking their uprising, obstructing reforms, human rights abuses and failing to revive the ailing economy or restore security.

The most recent protests – and an earlier round of protests that saw a deadly crackdown last month – have seen unprecedentedly bold ridiculing of the military, which for decades was considered a revered institution above criticism. Young protesters have heaped profanities into their anti-military slogans, demanded the execution of Tantawi and taunted soldiers in Tahrir.

On Monday, a member of the military council, Maj. Gen. Adel Emara, took a hard-line in a press conference, denouncing the protests as a conspiracy to “topple the state” and accusing the media of fomenting sedition.

He defended the use of force by troops, saying they had a duty to defend the state’s institutions and declined to offer an apology for brutality toward female protesters. He did not dispute the authenticity of the image of the woman being dragged half naked by soldiers, but said Egyptians should not see it without considering the circumstances surrounding the incident.

The apparent change in attitude with Tuesday’s statement of regret left some women unimpressed.

Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, a 31-year old activist, doubted the promise to punish those responsible and said the statement was in response to the US criticism. “This is an apology to one woman, Hillary Clinton.”

“This is like someone raping a girl, and then going to the police station to marry her (to avoid prosecution) and then divorce her as soon as he leaves,” she said. “It is an attempt to exonerate themselves after the deed is done, but with little accountability.”

Reprint: Egypt: 10,000 March in Protest at Woman Dragged Half-Naked Through the Street |The Telegraph

 

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, 69, Dies –By Rafael Wober | HuffPost

North Korean television announced in a “special broadcast” that its leader, Kim Jong Il, is dead. News of Kim’s death was made public on Monday, with officials indicating that he actually died two days earlier while riding a train. The country had begun transferring power to his son, Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be in his late 20s.

The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state news agency, issued several statements on Monday. A release titled “Kim Jong Il Passes Away (Urgent)” said that he “passed away from great mental and physical strain” at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17. A separate article entitled “Medical Analysis of Kim Jong Il’s demise” added that Kim suffered an “advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock.” Kim reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008, but appeared relatively healthy on recent trips around Asia, which were documented by state media.

Excerpt, read more: North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, 69, Dies –By Rafael Wober| HuffPost