Gender

Taliban View Even Women’s Cosmetics as a Threat to Their Rule

Women in Afghanistan have borne the brunt of the Taliban’s extremist Islamist rule. Four years on, there appears to be no end in sight.

Digital Democracy at a Crossroads. Key Takeaways from RigthsCon2025

By Carolina Vega and Chibuzor Nwabueze
In an increasingly digital world, democratic practices are evolving to encompass new forms of participation. Digital democracy – the use of technology to enhance civic action, movement building and access to information – has become a crucial force in shaping local and global political landscapes.

CGIAR Science Week Seeks Solutions for a Food-Secure, Climate Resilient Future

By IPS Correspondent
CGIAR and the Kenyan Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) are bringing together the world’s leading scientists and decision-makers in agriculture, climate, and health for the first CGIAR Science Week. This gathering will be a key moment to advance research and innovation, inspire action, and establish critical partnerships that can secure investment in sustainable food systems for people and the planet.

Challenging the Taliban’s Violations of Afghan Women’s Rights

By Alon Ben-Meir
The Taliban’s egregious violations of women's rights in Afghanistan, especially banning women from education and even from speaking in public, are beyond the pale. Imposing economic sanctions alone, however, has not changed in any significant way the Taliban’s treatment of women.

Trapped by Tradition: The Widows of Ukerewe and the Ritual They Cannot Escape

By Kizito Makoye
The night after her husband was laid to rest, 24-year-old Vivian Magesa sat in the dimly lit brick-walled house, surrounded by women from her late husband’s family. She had spent the past few days in mourning, wrapped in a white shroud, her head shaved as custom dictated. But as the hushed voices of her in-laws filled the room, Magesa realized her grief was far from over.

Putting People First: Why SRHR Must Be Central to Health and Development Agendas

By Richarlls Martins and Rajat Khosla
As global leaders prepare to convene for the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) in New York, April 7-11, the world finds itself at a critical crossroads. We can either recommit to human dignity, equality, and justice—or risk unraveling decades of progress in global health.

Global Disability Summit Galvanizes Education Support for Crisis-Impacted Children with Disabilities

By Joyce Chimbi
Of the nearly 234 million children and adolescents of school age affected by crises, 85 million are already out of school. At least 20 percent of them—or 17 million—are children living with disabilities.

Solar-Powered Spinning Machines Help Indian Women Save Time and Earn More

By Sanskrita Bharadwaj
As light enters through the small window of a modestly constructed tin-roofed house, Philim Makri sits on a chair deftly spinning cocoons of eri silk with the help of a solar-powered spinning machine in Warmawsaw village in Ri Bhoi district of Meghalaya in northeast India.

Collapse of Gaza Ceasefire and its Devastating Impact on Women and Girls

By Maryse Guimond
The end of the tenuous ceasefire in Gaza is having disastrous consequences for women and girls. From 18 to 25 March—in just those 8 days, 830 people were killed—174 women, 322 children, with 1,787 more injured.

How to Turn the Tide: Resisting the Global Assault on Gender Rights

By Inés M. Pousadela
This year’s session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), the world’s leading forum for advancing gender equality, confronted unprecedented challenges. With Saudi Arabia in the chair and anti-rights voices growing increasingly influential in the forum, the struggle to hold onto international commitments on gender equality intensified dramatically. On 8 March, International Women’s Day mobilisations also took on added urgency, with demonstrations from Istanbul to Buenos Aires focusing on resisting the multiple manifestations of gender rights regression being felt in communities worldwide.

Empowering Women in Agriculture: Breaking Barriers for a Thriving Future

By Esther Ngumbi
On March the 8th, the world celebrated International Women’s Day. This year’s theme was “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment” and called for actions that aim to unlock power and opportunities for women around the world by leaders across governments, corporate and private sector, academic communities, and civil societies.

Young Women in Afghanistan Driven to Suicide Amid Widespread Frustration

Azar Shaimaa sits in grief, her voice trembling with sorrow as she recounts the devastating loss of her daughter, Benazir. A bright ninth-grade student, Benazir took her own life. Just three years earlier, Shaimaa lost her husband in a car accident.

‘What’s Next?’ Women-led Movements Fear for the Future

By Conor Lennon
Women rights advocates who gathered at UN Headquarters for the world’s biggest meeting (10 -21 March) on gender equality have been sharing their concerns about the growing backlash against feminism, and how major funding cuts from donor countries could threaten programmes aimed at improving the lives of women and girls.

The Toll of Mental Health in Conflict Areas

By Oritro Karim
Over the past two decades, conversations surrounding mental wellness have entered the cultural consciousness in the western world. Despite this, these topics receive far less media exposure in the Global South, particularly in areas that have been entrenched in warfare, where the onset of harmful mental health conditions are prevalent.

Award Winning Women Goat Herders in Chile Confront Climate Change

By Orlando Milesi
Women goat herders in the municipality of Ovalle, in northern Chile, are confronting climate change by defending their heritage through improvements in the quality and variety of their products, which has led some to win international awards for their cheeses.

Civil Society: The Last Line of Defence in a World of Cascading Crises

By Inés M. Pousadela and Andrew Firmin
In a world of overlapping crises, from brutal conflicts and democratic regression to climate breakdown and astronomic levels of economic inequality, one vital force stands as a shield and solution: civil society. This is the sobering but ultimately hopeful message of CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report, which provides a wide-ranging civil society perspective on the state of the world as it stands in early 2025.

New Survey: US Funding Freeze Triggers Global Crisis in Human Rights and Democracy

By Tanja Brok
A new survey carried out by the EU System for an Enabling Environment (EU SEE) network exposes the impact of the US funding freeze on civil society organisations (CSOs) in over 50 countries. With 67% of surveyed organisations directly impacted and 40% of them losing between 25-50% of their budgets, the abrupt halt in funding is disrupting critical human rights, democracy, gender equality and health programs, leaving vulnerable communities without essential support.

Epilepsy Patients in Africa Fight Stigma and Neglect

By Promise Eze
When Angela Asemota’s son began having seizures at six years old in 1996, people gossiped that he was possessed by evil spirits, leading her to seek healing from native healers and religious clerics. He underwent several traditional rituals and drank various concoctions, but the seizures persisted. It was not until his fourth year in secondary school in 2004 that she took him to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with epilepsy and began taking medication.

When Ethnic Violence Turns Women Against Women

By Kumkum Chadha
For Kikim*, it was the ides of May, instead of March, that was, in one sense, her undoing. She was looking forward to welcoming her baby, her first. But life took an unexpected turn, and things changed within a split second.

Funding Disruptions Are a Systemic Failure – Philanthropy Must Do What’s Right and Support Local Leadership

By Tais Siqueira
The slashing of US aid funding by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and cuts or planned cuts in international support by several European states, threaten to cut off the oxygen supply to a civil society already in a critical condition. At CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, activists and grassroots groups have shared with us time and again that shifting and volatile donor priorities are one of the top funding challenges they face, alongside limited resources for strategy and restricted funding.

Women and Girls in Afghanistan Bear the Brunt of the Country’s Crisis

By Oritro Karim
Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, human rights have begun diminishing for over 14 million women. Heightened gender inequality has exacerbated the pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which has been marked by conflict, displacement, climate change, food insecurity, and economic instability. In 2025, widespread cuts in humanitarian funding look to further strain the crisis.
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