3+ mon, 1+ week ago (695+ words) This newspaper's victory in court underlines the courage of the women who spoke up and how in TV power shielded abuseThe high court's dismissal of the actor Noel Clarke's case against the Guardian is about more than one actor's failed libel claim. Mrs Justice Steyn's judgment is about power and complicity as well as the failure to protect vulnerable people. In her verdict,sheagreed with the Guardian that there were "strong grounds to believe that [Clarke] is a serial abuser of women.The court heard testimony from 26 witnesses before concluding that Clarke had engaged in harassment, bullying and abuse of power over many years. The judge accepted some of his evidence, but found him to be neither credible or reliable. The Guardian's journalists, by contrast, were meticulous and gave Clarke reasonable opportunity to respond as well as fairly presenting his…...

7+ mon, 3+ week ago (952+ words) Dispatches, presented by Cathy Newman, talks to 16 survivors or witnesses of the ex-Harrods boss's abuse, as well as tracking down his alleged enabler. The result is a raw, horrifying and invaluable watchIt is disturbingly easy to respond with little more than fatigue to reports of powerful men sexually exploiting women, because there have been so many. The part of us that should emit shock, disgust and righteous outrage becomes dulled through overuse. And so, when Mohamed Al Fayed, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, died in 2023 and was then credibly accused of being one of Britain's worst sex offenders, the collective reaction felt like a shrug.The new Dispatches investigation, Delivered to a Predator: Al Fayed's Fixer, however, ought to sharpen our revulsion and our resolve to fight for change. Building on the 2017 Dispatches documentary Behind Closed Doors and the…...

4+ mon, 3+ week ago (563+ words) Banning the silencing of employees subjected to harassment and abuse has been talked about since advent of #MeToo UK bosses to be banned from using NDAs to cover up misconduct at work The ban on the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence employees subjected to harassment and abuse is a significant and long-awaited moment " one that has been talked about since the advent of the #MeToo movement. Such contracts, where employers usually agree to pay an employee in return for keeping information confidential, have been around for decades but entered the lexicon as a result of the appalling revelations of sexual abuse and discrimination faced by women in the workplace. NDAs had originally been used for the understandable reason of protecting trade secrets when staff were moving jobs but have since become associated with a much darker purpose. Their…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago (159+ words) Norman and Joe Shrapnel | Proficiency in English | How to Stay Married | Jilly Cooper's Riders | What next for Venezuela? The government plans to require migrants coming to the UK to learn English to an A-level standard (Politics live with Andrew Sparrow, 14 October). How many current UK residents can demonstrate this level?Liz ThompsonOxford Jean Holmes says she was given three copies of Jilly Cooper's How to Stay Married (Letters, 10 October). I'wonder if they were secondhand.Pete BibbySheffield I remember lending my sister Riders by Jilly Cooper. She became so engrossed that she almost failed to collect her son from nursery. When I passed the book on to Mum, my sister said she would never be able to look her in the eye again.Penny SnookCollingham, Nottinghamshire What next for Venezuela: 1,000% tariffs or a Riviera-style resort (Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado wins…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (786+ words) Widespread adoption of artificial intelligence has been accompanied by new ways to harass women online Gaatha Sarvaiya would like to post on social media and share her work online. An Indian law graduate in her early 20s, she is in the earliest stages of her career and trying to build a public profile. The problem is, with AI-powered deepfakes on the rise, there is no longer any guarantee that the images she posts will not be distorted into something violating or grotesque. "The thought immediately pops in that, "OK, maybe it's not safe. Maybe people can take our pictures and just do stuff with them," says Sarvaiya, who lives in Mumbai. In recent years, India has become one of the most important testing grounds for AI tools. It is the world's second-largest market for OpenAI, with the technology widely adopted across…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (253+ words) Christine and Francis Saunders, who lost their beloved daughter Juliet, respond to the news that advice on maternal deaths in England and Wales has been routinely ignored Thank you for your article on how coroners" prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports are being routinely ignored (Coroners" advice on maternal deaths in England and Wales routinely ignored, study finds, 19 November). Experience has shown us that a coroner"s PFD report is issued in response to serious systemic failings and a trust"s inaction to prevent future tragedies. Tolerating poor care and refusing to learn seem to be shared features of health scandals, including the treatment of people with learning disabilities, such as our own beloved daughter, Juliet Saunders, who died aged 25. The trust resisted, claiming that, being non-verbal, Juliet was hard to treat. Would there have been any improvements without the…...

10+ mon, 3+ week ago (504+ words) Deaths from backstreet abortions have united pro-choice Christian and Muslim clerics around ending the strict ban Throughout his ministry, the Rev Cliff Nyekanyeka has led funeral services for women who died after an illegal abortion in Malawi. He has visited hospitals where doctors have shown him the aftereffects of such procedures, including pictures of what he describes as "rotting uteruses. And he has seen women struggling with unwanted pregnancies. "I've seen women struggling; I've seen them suffering and I feel for them, he says. "I am pro-choice because I've seen what it means [not to be], and I think I have to contribute to the movement. Nyekanyeka, 45, coordinates the Religious Leaders Network for Choice, a group formed in 2019 with about 15 members and which now numbers more than 1,000 Christians and Muslims. Unsafe abortion is among the top five direct causes of…...

8+ mon, 4+ day ago (546+ words) Report reveals scale of abuse faced by women in politics from countries including Australia, China, Japan and IndiaSexism, harassment and violence against women are rife in parliaments across the Asia-Pacific region, according to a damning report published on Tuesday that lays bare the scale of abuse faced by women in politics.Based on interviews with 150 female MPs and parliamentary staff across 33 countries across the region " including Australia, Mongolia, India, Indonesia and Micronesia " the study found that 76% of MPs and 63% of staff had experienced psychological gender-based violence, with 60% of MPs saying they had been targeted online by hate speech, disinformation and image-based abuse. An equal number of women were interviewed from each country. Continue reading... Report reveals scale of abuse faced by women in politics from countries including Australia, China, Japan and India Sexism, harassment and violence against women are rife…...

7+ mon, 5+ day ago (529+ words) Female film-makers call for action to end culture of "silence and impunity'Six in 10 women in Spain's film and audiovisual industry have suffered sexual violence, according to a report that calls for urgent action to protect female workers.The report, from the Association of Women Film-Makers and Audio-Visual Media, found that 60.3% of the women surveyed had been subjected to some form of sexual violence in spaces related to the industries. Continue reading... Female film-makers call for action to end culture of "silence and impunity' Six in 10 women in Spain's film and audiovisual industry have suffered sexual violence, according to a report that calls for urgent action to protect female workers. The report, from the Association of Women Film-Makers and Audio-Visual Media, found that 60.3% of the women surveyed had been subjected to some form of sexual violence in spaces related to the…...

4+ mon, 1+ hour ago (476+ words) An app designed to protect its users from dodgy men has been hacked by dodgy men. I wish I could say I'm surprisedHelp me out with a question I've been pondering, will you? I'm trying to figure out if there is a single adult on Earth whose personal information isn't for sale somewhere on the darker corners of the internet. Data breaches are a regular occurrence now. We give companies our information; they promise to keep it safe and then they sell it to dodgy third parties or lose it in hacking attacks. There is a website called haveibeenpwned.com where you can check if your email addresses have been part of a'data breach. My personal email is'in 15'of'them.The latest data breach to hit the headlines is particularly nasty. A popular women-only dating-safety app called Tea lets users compare…...