May 3, 2010

Can Women Peacekeepers Stop Haiti’s Rape Crisis?

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An all-woman police unit from Bangladesh has been dispatched to UN headquarters in Haiti, to the relief of groups trying to curb the epidemic of rape in post-quake tent cities. “It’s a whole world of difference for women who have been victimized to see women police, and we see the reporting of cases of gender-based sexual crimes increase when they are there,” a UN worker said. I hope the UN releases some photos of them in the field; I love this picture of the UN’s first female peacekeeping force, which was sent to Liberia with similar objectives in 2007.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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