Reading news on the web I was shocked once again by the harsh treatment of women in Muslim countries. This time a woman in Afghanistan who claimed to have been raped by her cousin's husband was sentenced to two years in prison for adultery. When she appealed the appellate court refused to believe she had been raped. They told her a woman cannot get pregnant as a result of her first sexual encounter, therefore she must have had a consensual relationship with the man. (She has a daughter, the result of the encounter.) Even if she was willing, being sentenced to two years in an Afghani prison for consensual sex is rather harsh.
Then came a startling statistic, in Afghanistan there are approximately 600 adult women in prison. Many of them for "moral crimes". The number seemed "odd". I began to do some research. The population of Afghanistan is approximately 34 million, assuming half are female leaves 17,000,000. Doing a quick calculation I learned that 0.00003 percent of the women in Afghanistan are in prison. That is 1 out of 28000.
By contrast California, one of our more progressive states, has about 37 million inhabitants. Of the 18,500,000 women in my home state 11,000 of them are incarcerated in state prison, 0.005 percent. One out of 1600. So if you are a woman in California you are almost twenty times more likely to be in prison than a woman in Afghanistan!
One fifth of these women, and half of the new arrivals have been sentenced for drug crimes. Only one third are there for violent offenses, of those the majority have used illicit drugs. Nearly half, 48%, report being the victims having been the victims of rape and/or sexual molestation. If you think some of these women may be lying in order to get better treatment then you have no understanding of how female victims of sexual abuse and assault are treated in this country. You might be more comfortable reading the Inquirer.
Add to that the great number of women in jail, on probation or out on parole have you have a sizable portion of the female population in the criminal justice system. Many of the women locked up for property crimes committed fraud or stole in order to obtain drugs. 80% of then are mothers, of those more than half are single mothers who get little or no support from the child's father. Statics from other states are similar.
What it all adds up to is a vast number of women in the United States who are under lock and key because of personal problems which lead to drug use and crime. Very often those problems stem from childhood sexual/physical abuse or neglect. Instead of offering a support system for these women, and help when needed, they are given a cell. The United States has a higher percentage of it population, including women, in prison than any other country in the world.
I do believe that women in this country are given more opportunities and have more freedom than those in many parts of the world. But that does not mean we can smugly point our fingers and say "They mistreat their women."
http://www.boalt.org/PAC/stats/women-prison-fact-sheet.html
Bonus rant:
Several years ago the Chief Medical Officer at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla Ca. was removed from his position because every woman who came into the infirmary, for any reason, was given a cervical exam or PAP smear. To be clear this was often in spite of the fact she might have been in recently for another problem and had the exam then. When questioned about this policy by correspondents from ABC's Nightline, Dr. Anthony Domenico, said "This is a group of women that are isolated. And I've heard women tell me that they would deliberately like to get examined - it's the only male contact they get." This is just one example of the sexual abuse these women continue to experience at one prison. Many more instances can be found. Oh, guess what happened to the Dr., did he lose his license or was he "reassigned"?
http://revcom.us/a/v22/1090-99/1090/california_prisons.htm
OWL
Dec. 13, 2011
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