Indian Farmers Hostage to Middlemen

Agriculture experts blame the crisis faced by India’s small farmers on a highly inefficient supply chain for perishable farm produce, a situation exploited by traders and middlemen.

OP-ED: To Break the Bonds of Injustice

Forty-six years ago, at a Senate subcommittee hearing on migratory labour, U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy listened in disgust as California's Kern County Sheriff explained the arrests of peaceful picketers brought on by mounting pressure from farm owners.

Thai Province Shows the Green Way

As fingers of morning light slip through the mango and banana orchards of his village, Suchin Utanarat heads out in a boat to net a fresh catch from the nearby canals teeming with shrimp.

Hard to Stay in Libya, Difficult to Return

At the battered terminal of Tripoli’s tiny Mitiga airport, over 150 young men and women jostle to be repatriated home to Nigeria on Libya’s Buraq airlines. This journey to Lagos is one of hundreds the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has facilitated since the start of the uprising against Gaddafi’s regime over a year ago.

Index Offers Improved Method to Gauge Women’s Progress

If an organisation wants to monitor how its projects in the developing world are affecting women in specific areas of female empowerment, it probably can't, as it lacks the proper tools. But a new system, the "Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index", is working to change that.

INDIA: Kashmir Missing Its ‘Demographic Dividend’

Kashmir is missing out on a ‘demographic dividend’ and unable to cash in on its youthful population for lack of initiatives from a state government bogged down by a two-decade-old separatist insurgency.

Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow – Part 2

The United Nations’ 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) opened Monday in New York, with the empowerment of rural women high on a list of priorities for this year.

ZAMBIA: No Longer “Waiting for the Mangoes to Ripen”

Eight years ago when Mary Sitali’s husband divorced her, by sending a traditional letter to her parents saying that he no longer wanted her and they could "marry her to any man of your choice - be he a tall or a short man, the choice being entirely yours," she returned to her village in rural Zambia with their two children and no way of supporting them.

Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow? – Part 2

The United Nations’ 56^th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) begins today in New York, with the empowerment of rural women high on a list of priorities for this year.

Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow? – Part 1

Agriculture currently provides a livelihood for roughly 1.3 billion smallholder farmers and landless workers, of which nearly half – close to 560 million – are women.

ECONOMY: Sri Lankan Poor Hit by Triple Whammy

First the government devalued the Sri Lankan rupee by three percent in November. Then interest rates were hiked. And to cap that U.S. sanctions hit Iran, which meets 90 percent of this country’s oil needs.

Q&A: How to Reverse the “Feminisation of Poverty”

The phrase "financing for gender equality" may sound dry, but it lies at the heart of some of the most intractable problems faced by women around the world today – and whether the political will exists to allocate real resources to solving them or simply pay lip service.

Jordanian NGOs Lead the Fight for Migrant Workers’ Rights

As the number of domestic workers flooding into Jordan from Indonesia, Philippines and Sri Lanka reaches 140,000 annually, non-governmental organisations on the ground are working hard to protect migrant labourers’ rights and expose the terrible working conditions in the rich households that employ them.

Brazil’s Construction Boom Eases Integration of Haitians

Pierre was in the next-door country of Dominican Republic when the January 2010 earthquake destroyed half of Port-au-Prince and killed at least 200,000 of his fellow Haitians, including his wife and his mother.

Greeks Discover the Politics of Poverty

According to European mainstream economists and politicians, the solution to the Greek debt crisis, and the only option for returning the country to a path of progress, is 'fiscal consolidation'.

BALKANS-ECONOMY: One-Dollar Steel Mill Exposes Cracks in Privatisation

For the first time in its history, Serbia has bought back a company sold to a foreign investor almost ten years ago, for the symbolic price of a single dollar. But while the purchase has stirred a sense of national pride, it is hardly a success story for the Balkan economy; rather, it has exposed the failure of a decade-long effort to privatise the national economy.

Western Tunisia Has More to Rebel Over

A month after the first anniversary of the Tunisian revolution, the North African country is being rocked by labour protests supported by the Union General Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), the main labour union in the country. The protests are centered in the impoverished western regions.

Poles Apart in These Online Wars

Many people are appalled by the anti-Polish website established recently by the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV). The site encourages complaints against migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly from Poland. The Poles are hitting back with their own hotlines, and humour.

Bangladesh Braves Climate Change With Community Radio

"Welcome to Krishi (farming) Radio. You are listening to FM 98.8 megahertz and I am your hostess Shahnaz Parvin," the local community radio crackles over the mobile phones and transistors of residents in coastal Barguna district.

Migrant Workers in Singapore Demand Justice

When a group of about 100 mostly Bangladeshi migrant workers went on strike at a construction site over unpaid wages this month, it created ripples in this affluent and orderly island republic.

Wages Stuck in Slow Lane on Chile’s Growth Speedway

Despite much government fanfare, the drop in Chile's unemployment rate is not enough to satisfy experts or workers, who point to the deeper problems of sporadic work, underemployment and low wages that are aggravating the country's endemic inequality.