Gender

U.S. Urged to Change Policy on Support to Victims of Sexual Violence

By Ramy Srour
The U.S. government is being urged to roll back a longstanding policy that has banned foreign aid funding from being used for health care services for victims of sexual violence in conflict situations.

Indian Boys Get Lessons in Respect

By Shai Venkatraman
In a shanty tucked inside Dharavi, described as Asia’s largest slum settlement, a little piece of theatre unfolds. Several young boys are heckled as they pretend to go vegetable shopping - and calling them names are young girls. The boys are embarrassed.

An African Dream Called Lampedusa

By Karlos Zurutuza
Youssef crossed the Sahara desert with a folded school map of Europe in his pocket. “Could you please point [out] Lampedusa in the map for me? I cannot find it.”

Poll Finds Iranians Sceptical of Rouhani Government

By Barbara Slavin
A new poll following the election of President Hassan Rouhani says that a majority of Iranians oppose Iran’s intervention in Syria and Iraq and believe that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite their government’s claims to the contrary.

Bill Commits U.S. Diplomacy to Ending Abuse of Women

By Carey L. Biron
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

By AJ Correspondents
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.

Wage Hike in Haiti Doesn’t Address Factory Abuses

By Jane Regan
Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12 percent on Jan. 1, from 4.65 to 5.23 dollars (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes.

Restoring Sight to Africa’s Gender-Blind Rice Sector

By Busani Bafana
For more than 20 years, Anastasia Ngwakun from Bamunkumbit village in central Cameroon has been farming rice the hard way – using only hand tools. But Ngwakun knows that if she were a man, she would have access to the technology that would not require her to work so hard.

Saving Children From Loggers

By Catherine Wilson
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.

Ending AIDS in the City Where It Began

By Samuel Oakford
Four hundred Eighth Avenue, home to the largest welfare centre for people with AIDS in New York, is the kind of grey, drab city building that seems like it was dragged, scowling, into the 21st  Century.

OP-ED: Honour Killings – India’s Crying Shame

By Nupur Basu
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.

Skateboarding Can Be Empowering

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
An array of colourful quarter pipes, bank ramps and a fun box come to life as a clutch of Cambodian youngsters do balancing tricks, kick-flips and kick turns. The all-girl session at a skating facility near the Russian Market here is facilitated by 20-year-old Kov Chansangva, popularly known as Tin.

Budget Constraints Delays Set Up of South Africa’s Rape Courts

By Melany Bendix
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”.

Uganda’s First Female Funeral Director – From Taboo to Mainstream

By Amy Fallon
Uganda may have the third-highest fertility rate in the world but where there is life, death is inevitable. And it is a certainty that Regina Mukiibi Mugongo made the most of when she became this East African nation’s first ever funeral director almost two decades ago.

Femicides in Brazil Hit Civil War Proportions

By Fabíola Ortiz
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.

LGBT Immigrants Face Rampant Assault in U.S. Jails

By Ramy Srour
Gay and transsexual immigrants who enter the U.S. detention system face high levels of sexual abuse, new research warns, at times leading them to decide to return to their home countries rather than stay to fight a legal battle.

Pros and Cons of Uganda’s New ARV Therapy for Pregnant Women

By Wambi Michael
Uganda has gotten plenty of kudos and some criticism over its roll out of the new antiretroviral therapy for pregnant women and their babies, known as Option B +.

Lebanon’s Splintered Law Wrecks Lives

By Rebecca Murray
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

By Shelly Kittleson
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.

Widening Inequality Shatters Mirage of Social Mobility

By Ramy Srour
Growing income inequality will pose a major threat to social stability in countries around the globe, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum.

Grappling to Give Uganda’s Fistula Patients Dignity

By Amy Fallon
Ever since giving birth to a stillborn baby 15 years ago, Mary*, a peasant farmer from Mubende District in central Uganda, has continuously leaked urine.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*