News From the Field | National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)

Group says sexual assaults on the rise in Tahrir Square

By CNN Staff

(CNN) -- Sexual violence against female protestors at Cairo's Tahrir Square appears to be increasing, an activist group devoted to end such assaults said Tuesday.

Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault said it intervened in 15 of 19 reported sexual assaults on Friday when 10,000 people gathered in the square on the two-year anniversary of the start of the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

D.C. Police Mishandle Sexual Assault Cases, Says Human Rights Watch Report

(Washington, DC) – Victims of sexual assault in Washington, DC, are not getting the effective response they deserve and should expect from the district’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Sexual assault cases are too often not properly documented or investigated and victims may face callous, traumatizing treatment, despite official departmental policy to the contrary.

Violence Against Women Act Reintroduced

On Tuesday, Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) reintroduced a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The version of the bill they introduced is the same version that passed in the Senate during the last legislative session. Additionally, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced a reauthorization bill that is identical to the Senate version, H.R. 11.

Morocco plan to change rape marriage law

Women's rights activists in Morocco have welcomed plans to change an article of the penal code that allows rapists of underage girls to avoid prosecution by marrying their victims.

On Monday, the justice ministry said it backed a proposal to amend Article 475 and would consider tougher sentences.

Any changes to the penal code must be approved by both houses of parliament.

The move came 10 months after 16-year-old Amina Filali killed herself after being forced to marry her rapist.

L.A. church leaders sought to hide sex abuse cases from authorities

By Victoria Kim, Ashley Powers and Harriet Ryan

Rape and torture among serious rights violations spawned by Mali crisis – UN report

18 January 2013 – The ongoing crisis in Mali has led to serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, rape and torture, says a United Nations report released today, which warns that increasing ethnic tensions could have alarming consequences on the North African nation.

Rape has become ‘significant’ part of Syrian war, says humanitarian group

By Jenna Johnson

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Rape has become a “significant and disturbing feature” of the war in Syria, one that many refugees cite as their leading reason for fleeing the country, according to a report released Monday by a New York-based humanitarian organization.

Report: Six suspects held over another India bus gang rape

By Alastair Jamieson

Six suspects have been arrested over the rape of a woman on a bus in northern India, just weeks after the gang-rape and murder of a student sparked nationwide protests, reports said early Sunday.

Police say a 29-year-old woman was a lone passenger on a bus to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday when she was attacked, The Associated Press reported.

Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases

By Bill Briggs

With only 8 percent of reported military sexual assaults ending in the court-martial convictions of offenders, the head of a victims group testified Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that an independent audit of those investigations and trials “would be a wonderful thing.”

More than 800 NYC rape cases reviewed for mistakes

By Kristina Sgueglia

New York (CNN) -- A review of forensic evidence in New York City rape cases has uncovered 26 incidents where critical evidence went undetected, prompting the city's medical examiner's office to look into more than 800 rape cases over 10 years, "reviewing and retesting everything."

On Friday, the medical examiner's rape-case review prompted New York's City Council speaker to set an "emergency oversight hearing" for January 22.