Women World Wide

by Mary Jo Grey

More than 100 women and men in Cairo, Egypt, protested, Nov. 9, against President Hosni Mubarak and the police force for ignoring violent sexual attacks on women walking through a busy shopping district two nights in October. The Interior Ministry and pro-government newspapers denied that such attacks happened, despite the presence of police who did nothing to stop them. Human rights activist Aida Seif el-Dawla said many of the demonstrators were new to showing their opposition to such harassment. They found out about it thanks to reports on the internet.

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With hopefully more progressive voices taking office in the U.S. Congress, homeless women and children may get help. President Bush's homeless initiative has focused on getting the visible homeless off the streets. Programs for the growing number of homeless families and women who have suffered domestic violence--about two-thirds of all homeless women--are obscenely underfunded. The U.S. Conference of Mayors 2005 Survey on Hunger and Homelessness revealed that 32% of all families seeking emergency shelter were turned away. The response of Bush's "homeless czar," Philip Mangano, was to lobby against expanding federal homeless assistance to homeless women and their families.

--Information from MS. Magazine