Gender

Women Challenged by Rising Extremism and Militarism

By Thalif Deen
Ongoing military conflicts in the strife-torn Middle East - specifically in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Palestine - have resulted in widespread civilian casualties, impacting heavily on the most vulnerable in besieged communities: women and children.

Children in Aleppo Forced Underground to Go to School

By Shelly Kittleson
Winter has not yet hit this nearly besieged city, but children are already attending classes in winter coats and stocking hats.

Ending Violence Against Women – A Global Responsibility

By Lakshmi Puri
Addressing violence against women, in all of its forms, is a global imperative and should be one of the international community’s top priorities, including in forthcoming intergovernmental processes, such as the post-2015 development agenda.

Child Poverty in Spain Seen Through the Eyes of Encarni

By Inés Benítez
“I would like to have a big house, and I wish my family didn’t have to go out and ask for food or clothes,” Encarni, who just turned 12, tells IPS in the small apartment she shares with five other family members in a poor neighbourhood in the southern Spanish city of Málaga.

Another Women’s Treaty? Implement Existing One, Say NGOs

By Thalif Deen
Can violence against women be prevented or eliminated with a new international treaty signed and ratified by the 193 member states of the United Nations?

Mozambique Tackles its Twin Burden of Cervical Cancer and HIV

By Mercedes Sayagues
The woman on bed 27 in Maputo Central Hospital’s oncology ward has no idea how lucky she is. In January, when abdominal pains racked her, a pharmacist suggested pain killers. For months, “the pain would go and return,” she told IPS. 

Fighting the “Neighbour’s Disease” in Mozambique

By Mercedes Sayagues
Mozambique is reeling under the twin burden of HIV and cervical cancer. Eleven women die of cervical cancer every day, or 4,000 a year. Yet this cancer is preventable and treatable, if caught early.

Canada Accused of Failing to Prevent Overseas Mining Abuses

By Carey L. Biron
The Canadian government is failing either to investigate or to hold the country’s massive extractives sector accountable for rights abuses committed in Latin American countries, according to petitioners who testified here Tuesday before an international tribunal.

Better Water Management Needed to Eradicate Poverty

By Torgny Holmgren
It demands repetition: water is a precondition for all life. It keeps us alive – literally – while being a prerequisite for or integral part of most of our daily activities. Think hospitals without water, think farms, energy producers, industries, schools and homes without our most needed resource. All sectors, without exception, are dependent on water.

OPINION: Keeping All Girls in School is One Way to Curb Child Marriage in Tanzania

By Agnes Odhiambo
“You cannot continue with your education. You have to get married because this man has already paid dowry for you,” Matilda H’s father told her. Matilda, from Tanzania, was 14 and had just passed her primary school exams and had been admitted to secondary school. She pleaded with her father to allow her to continue her education, but he refused.  

Guatemalan Officers Face Sexual Slavery Charges in Historic Trial

By Luz Mendez
On Oct. 14, Guatemala’s Court for High-Risk Crimes ruled that charges would be brought against two members of the Army for sexual slavery and domestic slavery against q’eqchís women in the military outpost of Sepur Zarco, and other serious crimes perpetrated in the framework of the government counterinsurgency policies during the armed conflict.

Kashmir Flood Carries Away Humble Dreams

By Athar Parvaiz
Rafiqa Kazim and her husband Kazim Ali had a simple dream – to live a modest life, educate their four children and repay the bank-loan that the couple took out to sustain their small business.

Halting Progress: Ending Violence against Women

By Ravi Kanth Devarakonda
As Juan Evo Morales Ayma, popularly known as 'Evo', celebrates his victory for a third term as Bolivia’s president on a platform of “anti-imperialism” and radical socio-economic policies, he can also claim credit for ushering in far-reaching social reforms such as the Bolivian “Law against Political Harassment and Violence against Women” enacted in 2012.

OPINION: Innovation Needed to Help Family Farms Thrive

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Family farms have been contributing to food security and nutrition for centuries, if not millennia. But with changing demand for food as well as increasingly scarce natural resources and growing demographic pressures, family farms will need to innovate rapidly to thrive.

OPINION: Iraq’s Minorities Battling for Survival

By Mark Lattimer and Mahmoud Swed
Through all of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s campaigns of ‘Arabization’, they survived. The diverse Iraqi communities inhabiting the Nineveh plains – Yezidis, Turkmen, Assyrians and Shabak, as well as Kurds – held on to their unique identities and most of their historic lands.

Family Farmers – Forward to the Future

By Gloria Schiavi
"Who is more concerned than the rural family with regards to preservation of natural resources for future generations?"

OPINION: The Survivors

By Yury Fedotov
Oct. 18 is the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day, as well as the United Kingdom’s Anti-Slavery Day. These events offer a good opportunity to talk about human trafficking within Europe’s borders, but we should not forget that there are victims and survivors all over the world.

Cash-Strapped Human Rights Office at Breaking Point, Says New Chief

By Thalif Deen
After six weeks in office, the new U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein of Jordan launched a blistering attack on member states for insufficient funding, thereby forcing operations in his office to the breaking point "in a world that seems to be lurching from crisis to ever-more dangerous crisis."

Family Farming – A Way of Life

By Gloria Schiavi
It does not make the headlines, but 2014 is the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) and family farming will be centre-stage at this year’s World Food Day on Oct. 16 at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

In Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, a Nobel Prize Is a ‘Ray of Hope’

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
For girls living in northern Pakistan’s sprawling tribal regions, the struggle for education began long before that fateful day when members of the Taliban shot a 15-year-old schoolgirl in the head, and will undoubtedly continue for many years to come.

Displacement Spells Danger for Pregnant Women in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Imagine traveling for almost an entire day in the blistering sun, carrying all your possessions with you. Imagine fleeing in the middle of the night as airstrikes reduce your village to rubble. Imagine arriving in a makeshift refugee camp where there is no running water, no bathrooms and hardly any food. Now imagine making that journey as a pregnant woman.
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