What’s Current: Berlin New Year’s Eve party will have ‘safe zone’ for women who are harassed or assaulted

Image: visitBerlin.de
  • The organizers of Germany’s biggest New Years Eve celebration in Berlin are setting up a women-only safe zone “for women who have been victims of a sexual offense or are feeling harassed.”
  • Shanta Myers, her girlfriend Brandi Mells, and their two children were brutally murdered in their home in upstate New York. Police have said the attack was not random.
  • The police chief in charge of child protection in the UK is estimating that that 20,000 British men have expressed interest in sexually abusing children online this past year.
  • Police in Tehran announce they will no longer arrest and detain women who violate the country’s conservative Muslim dress code. Instead, they will be required to attend classes given by police. The dress code remains in place outside the capital.
  • In Delhi, nearly 250 women and 48 girls have been found confined in properties belonging to the Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya religious organization. Authorities fear thousands more women could be living in similar conditions in the hundreds of other properties linked to the group nationwide.
Lisa Steacy

Lisa Steacy is an Assistant Editor at Feminist Current. She has a B.A. in Women & Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. However, the women she met in her five years as a frontline worker and collective member with Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter deserve almost all of the credit for her feminist education. She lives in Vancouver with her partner and their cats.