Did you know that, in Tunisia and Algeria, a rapist can escape charges simply by marrying his victim if she's under 18? And did you know that, while Morocco no longer allows men to escape justice in precisely this manner, rapists can still get lighter sentences if their victim wasn't a virgin? These intolerable realities often spur women trapped in marriages of terror to kill themselves. You know what that means -- it's time for the shame gun! Amnesty International helps you tell the governments of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco to drag some of their laws into the 21st century, or at least the late 20th. You will not only be asking these governments to repeal the offending laws -- you'll also ask them to make rape with a marriage a crime, to get rid of laws that criminalize sex between consenting adults who happen not to be married (since folks won't come forward with sexual abuse allegations if they think they're going to jail for having sex-without-marriage), and to train their law enforcement officers, judicial officials, and health-care workers to treat rape with the sensitivity of civilized people. It's not that damn much to ask.
Meanwhile, iPhone supplier NXP Philippines fired two dozen workers, officially for "not working on public holidays," but I bet you can guess the real reason: they were trying to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. You can take heart, I suppose, that "(t)he decision was not made lightly," being made, as it were, during contract negotiations. You'd be well within your rights to suppose that firing the other side's leaders during such negotiations might be a little bit unfair, perhaps even intimidating. And, ah, why is Apple contracting work out to a corporation in the Philippines in the first place? Because they'll pay their workers in dung pellets and Apple's executives will make more money, of course. You'd think Apple would learn by now, having taken so many PR hits over the Foxconn workers who killed themselves rather than get roused out of bed in the middle of the night because Steve Jobs had another idea that had to be implemented right away. But if they haven't, we're always ready with more lessons: Sum of Us helps you tell Apple to ensure that the NXP reinstates its workers and treats all of its workers fairly.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the EPA to mandate that gas drilling corporations disclose the chemicals they use in practicing hydrofracturing, or fracking, then Food and Water Watch still helps you do that. You wouldn't want to wait, after all, until your drinking water becomes brackish, or gelatinous, or flammable, and with fracking operations exploding (occasionally literally!) all over America, more of our clean water is at risk than ever before. What is the problem with disclosure, after all? The authors of the 2005 energy bill that permitted gas drillers to keep their fracking chemicals secret no doubt want you to believe that such chemicals are "trade secrets" that fracking corporations must keep in order to get ahead. Think about that for a second, though: they can't make money unless they keep their chemicals out of the public eye? More like the public would be disgusted to find carcinogens and other toxins in the water they drink, bathe in, and wash clothes in! With chemical spills on the rise, with more fracking making poisonous drinking water more likely, the time to act is now.
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