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Wednesday, November 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Gender Violence
Bill Commits U.S. Diplomacy to Ending Abuse of Women
The U.S. Congress is being urged to pass “urgent” legislation that would make issues of violence against women and girls a key focus in all U.S. diplomatic efforts.Morocco Under Fire Over Women’s Rights Bill
Women's rights activists in Morocco have criticised the Islamist-led government for excluding them from drafting proposed legislation to combat violence against women and for seeking to dilute the bill through changes.
Saving Children From Loggers
Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced no beneficial development.OP-ED: Honour Killings – India’s Crying Shame
According to statistics from the United Nations, one in five cases a year of honour killings internationally comes from India. Of the 5000 cases reported internationally, 1000 are from India. Non-governmental organisations put the number at four times this figure. They claim it is around 20,000 cases globally every year.Budget Constraints Delays Set Up of South Africa’s Rape Courts
Specialised sexual offences courts could make a dent in South Africa’s staggeringly high rape rate by speeding up the turnover of rape cases and thereby convicting more rapists and encouraging more survivors to report the crime. However, unless the South African government puts its money where its mouth is, the so-called “rape courts” will amount to nothing more than a “nice idea”.
Femicides in Brazil Hit Civil War Proportions
The number of femicides – gender-related murders – in Brazil has reached civil war-like proportions. In just 10 years 40,000 women were killed in this country merely for being women.
Lebanon’s Splintered Law Wrecks Lives
Married women in Lebanon who suffer abuse at home remain at the mercy of the country’s multitude of religious courts, because the hard-fought civil law against domestic violence has been stalled for a vote in parliament since the summer.
Fears Rise of ‘Taliban-Style’ Justice in Syria
Concerns are rising that courts run by Islamic clerics in many of Syria’s rebel-held areas may serve as a prelude to Taliban-style justice in what was long a violently repressive but secular state.
Cairo Women Bring Men Back on the Rails
Nihal Saad Zaghloul is an Egyptian woman in her late twenties. Like other young women, she faces the daily risk of sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo. But Egypt’s revolution made her realise that people can unite and that she can make a difference.
Idyllic Island Confronts Bloody Past
Anguish over the whereabouts of loved ones who went missing during a five-year civil conflict that ended a decade ago continues for countless families in the Solomon Islands. Searching for the remains of those who disappeared is vital to enduring peace in this culturally diverse south-west Pacific island nation of 550,000.
OP-ED: Act Now, Act Big to End Sexual Violence in DRC
Imagine an orphanage where over 300 children born out of rape have been abandoned because of the shame and stigma associated with sexual violence. Imagine a town where, in the last year, 11 infants between the ages of six months and one year, and 59 small children from one to three years old, have been raped.
‘I Sold My Sister for 300 Dollars’
Amani has just turned 22. Two months ago she fled from the civil war in Syria and left her house in capital Damascus. After a dangerous nightlong trip she arrived at Zaatari, the refugee camp just over the border in Jordan, where her parents and two sisters had already lived for over a year.
U.N. Urged to Practice What It Preaches on Gender
Amidst a rise in sexual violence in the world’s war zones, the United Nations has begun appointing women to head some of the key political and peacekeeping missions in conflict areas - and also created Gender Advisers as a second line of defence.
For Kurdish Women, It’s a Double Revolution
"I got married when I was 14 and I already had four children at 20," recalls Nafia Brahim. In her fifties now, she is working hard so that no other woman loses control of her life.
OP-ED: How Women’s Rights Are Linked to U.S.-Iran Negotiations
While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.
Women Battle On After Lanka War
The battle might have been over four long years ago, but for the women in Sri Lanka’s former conflict zones in the northern and eastern provinces, the war continues.
“One Day in There Is Like 100 Years”
"It’s just like a prison. One day in there is like 100 years,” says Jennifer, a 35-year-old Nigerian woman, describing what her aunt went through in the Immigrant Detention Centre (CIE) in this city in southern Spain before she was deported.
Solomon Men Learning Wisely to Respect Women
In the Solomon Islands in the south-west Pacific, where two in three of the estimated female population of 252,000 have experienced physical and sexual partner abuse, recognition is growing that ending the cycle of violence cannot be achieved without the partnership of men as catalysts of change. And initiatives by men are gaining support.
OP-ED: Women’s Empowerment Builds International Peace and Security
When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table. A resolution adopted Friday by the U.N. Security Council moves us one step closer to the full participation of women as leaders for peace and security.
Grief Veils Eid for Syrian Refugees
This week the Islamic world marks one of its holiest holidays, Eid al-Adha - honouring Ibrahim’s commitment to sacrifice his first-born son to Allah. The festival involves large family gatherings, bountiful lunches and generous gift giving.Armenia’s Fight against Gender Equality Morphs into Fight Against EU
Europe is getting a surprise bashing in Armenia over a law on gender equality that many Armenians claim is designed to “promote” homosexuality as a “European value.”« Previous Page — Next Page »
One in three women around the world have been subject to violence. Women face physical, sexual, and psychological violence in both public and private. Taking forms such as violence in the intimacy of a relationship, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation, gender violence is an issue that affects women in all countries. Only two-thirds of countries have outlawed domestic violence, leaving millions of women unprotected from abuse including from marital and de facto partners in many cases. Additionally, through human trafficking countless women are subjected to sexual exploitation and sexual violence, including horrific acts such as genital mutilation. Today many actors from individuals, to multinational organizations work to address these issues. These articles help to shed light on the violence that women experience every day and how its is being addressed.
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