Gender Violence

India: Home to One in Three Child Brides

By Neeta Lal
Basanti Rani*, a 33-year-old farmers’ wife from the northern Indian state of Haryana, recently withdrew her 15-year-old daughter Paru from school in order to marry her off to a 40-year-old man.

Abuse of Older Women Overlooked and Underreported

By Chau Ngo
A veteran women's rights activist, Patricia Brownell was still taken aback by the prevalence of abuse against older women she discovered during dozens of conversations she and her colleagues had with victims.

Kenya’s Own ‘Erin Brokovich’ Changes Lives of Girl Survivors of Sexual Abuse

By Adam Bemma
Surrounded by endless rows of green tea plants, Mary carefully picked a leaf and placed it into a basket next to her. It seemed like an ordinary day at work for the 13-year-old girl from Meru, in central Kenya. After work she escaped to the adjacent farm for privacy, but was instead attacked and raped by a middle aged man. 

Former War Zone Drinking its Troubles Away

By Amantha Perera
Back in the day when the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ran a de-facto state in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, alcohol consumption was closely monitored, and sternly frowned upon.

China’s ‘Left-Behind Girls’ Learn Self-Protection

By UN Women
A normally quiet second-grade student, Yuan Yuan* suffers from a mild mental disorder that impacts her ability to learn and communicate. Her father, also mentally disabled, left her several years ago to find work in the city and his family hasn’t heard from him since. Unable to support the family, her mother also left and never returned.

Outlawing Polygamy to Combat Gender Inequalities, Domestic Violence in Papua New Guinea

By Catherine Wilson
New legislation recently passed in the southwest Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea (PNG) outlawing polygamy has been welcomed by experts in the country as an initial step forward in the battle against high rates of domestic violence, gender inequality and the spread of AIDS.

OPINION: Empowering DR Congo’s Sexual Violence Survivors by Enforcing Reparations

By Sucharita S.K. Varanasi
Before a sexual violence survivor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has her day in court, she must surmount many obstacles. Poor or nonexistent roads and costly transportation may prevent her from going to a police station to report the crime, or to a hospital to receive treatment for the injuries sustained during the violence.

‘Zero Tolerance’ the Call for Child Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation

By A. D. McKenzie
Heightening their campaign to eradicate violence against women and girls, United Nations agencies and civil groups have called for increased action to end child marriage and female genital mutilation.

Focus on Child Marriage, Genital Mutilation at All-Time High

By Julia Hotz
As Tuesday’s major summits here and in London focused global attention on adolescent girls, the United Nations offered new data warning that more than 130 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, while more than 700 million women alive today were forced into marriage as children.

What Selfies Have in Common with the SDGs

By Julia Hotz
"My cousin was a very successful and distinguished student. She said that she finished high school with excellent grades and enrolled in college, but a month later, her parents forced her to leave school and burned all her books and studying material. So, the girl set fire to herself."

Time to “Drop the Knife” for FMG in The Gambia

By Saikou Jammeh
Women’s rights activists in the Gambia are insisting that more than 30 years of campaigning to raise awareness should be sufficient to move the government to outlaw female genital mutilation (FMG).

OPINION: Obama’s Quick Fix Won’t Solve the Regional Refugee Crisis

By Michelle Brané
In recent months, an unprecedented surge of refugee women and children has been traveling alone to the United States to seek protection at our southern border.

A Third Term for DR Congo President Expected to Wreak Social Havoc

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman
Proposals to review the Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitution to permit President Joseph Kabila to seek a third term of office, if accepted, will only plunge the Congolese further into poverty and insecurity, experts warn.

OP-ED: Surging Violence Against Women in Iraq

By Zahra Radwan and Zoe Blumenfeld
Shortly after their conquest of Mosul, young men armed with assault rifles went door to door in Iraq’s second-largest city, taking “women who are not owned” for jihad al-nikah, or sex jihad.

Mexico Rape Victims Face Prison Time for Self-Defence

By Daniela Pastrana
“I just want all this to be over,” Yakiri Rubí Rubio, a young Mexican woman facing trial for killing the man who raped her in December 2013, laments to IPS.

India’s ‘Temple Slaves’ Struggle to Break Free

By Stella Paul
At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into ‘beedis’, a local cigarette, she tells IPS, “I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea.”

Survivors of Sexual Violence Deserve More Than Just Talk

By Roger Hamilton-Martin
“States must make concrete commitments to enable and protect women human rights defenders, so that they can safely and securely carry out their work in support of victims of sexual and gender-based violence,” Amnesty International told the Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict that wound up Friday in London.

Search for Nigerian Girls May be Impeded by Government’s Longstanding Lack of Coherent Strategy

By Ini Ekott
The search for the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, could be hampered by a series of policy and information flip-flops by the government, the latest one of them being a public disagreement on policy between the president and the military chief.

U.N. Releases Guidelines on Reparations for Victims of Sexual Violence

By Thalif Deen
When sexual violence - whether against men, women or children - takes place in United Nations peacekeeping missions worldwide, the world body has been quick to single out the perpetrators and expel them back to their home countries.

Op-Ed: First Decolonisation, Now ‘Depatriarchilisation’

By Lakshmi Puri
At the end of this week leaders of the Group of 77 and China will meet in Bolivia to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the group.

OP-ED: Violence Leaves Women, Girls, and Young People on the Edge in South Sudan

By Julitta Onabanjo
As with many conflicts and other humanitarian emergencies around the world, those who suffer the most are women, young girls and children. The current terrible crisis in South Sudan is no exception. 
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