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Tuesday, November 10, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Gender
Yemeni Women Struggle to Step Forward
Yemeni women have played an integral role in the protests against ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year regime last year. But despite the country’s upcoming political ‘National Dialogue’ - brokered by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and intended to bring together a cross-section of Yemeni constituencies - females still face a wall of discriminatory laws and practices, and a status quo willing to enforce them.New Feminism Tears Down Walls in Brazil
Anarkia Boladona has turned the streets of Brazil into billboards against domestic violence. As a self-titled feminist political graffiti artist, she represents a new trend in women’s rights that seeks less academic and more daring and popular avenues of expression.
Paediatricians for a Healthy Environment
A group of Argentine paediatricians has been combining work on environmental protection and child health for more than 10 years. It appears a basic principle to apply, but the task is turning out to be increasingly challenging and complex.
Q&A: Global Ban Another Tool in the Fight Against FGM
For the estimated 140 million girls and women living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is already too late. But since a global ban on FGM was passed at the end of last year, activists hope many more will now escape this brutal practice.
Bought, Sold and Abused in Yemen
Twenty-one-year-old Aisha clings to her two children as she recounts her tale of horror. Growing up in the Somali capital Mogadishu, she fell in love and bore a child out of wedlock four years ago. When her family threatened her life for destroying her ‘honour’, Aisha escaped.
The Rise of Ethiopia’s Sole Rebels
Innovative Ethiopian footwear manufacturer Sole Rebels will open its second retail outlet in Taiwan this year. With ambitions to open 30 more franchise stores across the world in countries like the United States, Australia, Italy and Japan, Sole Rebels, the largest African footwear brand, is now fast becoming a global competitive brand.
Women Demand Equality in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, the most populous nation in the Pacific Islands, is ranked 153 out of 187 countries worldwide for gender equality, which is evident in education, employment, health and political representation.
Grandmothers Taking the Lead Against Female Genital Mutilation
In the southern Senegal village of Kael Bessel, female genital mutilation is no longer a taboo subject. Sexagenarian Fatoumata Sabaly speaks freely about female circumcision and girls' rights with her friends.
Fear of Rape Stalks Indian Women
While a 23-year-old woman battles for life in a New Delhi hospital after she was gang raped and brutalised on a moving bus in India's prosperous national capital earlier this month, women across the nation say they live in constant fear of sexual assault.
The Politics of Polio in Pakistan
The murder of nine health workers vaccinating children against polio in Pakistan’s northwest cities of Peshawar and Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and its southern port city Karachi, have elicited shock and outrage.
Anti-Prostitution Campaign Picks Up Speed
In a small dingy room on the edge of a brothel in west Kolkata, capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a 42-year-old former sex worker is trying to eke out a living selling cooked food in her neighbourhood, while tending to her sick husband and a paralysed son.South Korea’s Park Wins Presidential Election
The daughter of South Korea's former military ruler has won the country's presidential election, promising in a speech to her supporters to heal a "divided society".
Ahead of Mali Resolution, Worries Grow over Military Intervention
Even as U.S. and French officials suggest that a United Nations resolution on military intervention in Mali could come by the end of the week, concerns are rising that such action could do far more harm than good.
Women Fight Climate Battles
From Zimbabwe to El Salvador, women in poor countries suffer the brunt of climate change, but also learn to recover from disasters, to adapt and even to find opportunities in the new weather conditions.
Women and Activists Lament Japan’s Election Outcome
The return to power of Japan’s conservative and hard-line Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Sunday indicates that voters traded urgently needed social and environmental reforms for traditional male-led leadership, according to analysts here.
Q&A: “Syria Needs a Political Solution with Peace, Justice and an End to Impunity”
The first woman to preside over the United Nations Human Rights Council, Uruguayan diplomat Laura Dupuy, has made it with flying colours through one of the periods of greatest tension and conflict since the council replaced the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 2006.Some Côte d’Ivoire Women Don’t Want Joint Responsibility for Family
After 17 years of women struggling for parity with men in the household, Côte d'Ivoire's legislature has finally adopted a law which establishes equal responsibility for legally married spouses. But not everyone is happy.
No Women, No Elections
Kenya’s rights activists are furious that the country’s highest court “violated” women’s constitutional rights by ruling against the implementation of a gender quota in parliament ahead of the 2013 general elections.
Cambodian Activists Challenge ASEAN Policies
For a brief moment last month, mainstream international media turned the spotlight on Cambodia, one of the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs), as a high-level visit from U.S. President Barack Obama and the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gave this country of 14.3 million people a glamorous edge.
First Muslim Human Rights Commission to Launch End December
Gathering for the first time here in Washington, representatives of the newly established human rights commission of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) stated Thursday that they plan to start their substantive work by the end of the month.
War Widows Struggle in a ‘Man’s World’
Sita Tamang’s husband went missing sometime in 2004, two years before Nepal’s civil war came to an end. A native of Dharan, a town about 600 kilometres southeast of Kathmandu, Tamang waited seven years after his disappearance before she tried to claim compensation offered by the government after a 2006 peace deal ended this country’s bloodshed.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Women make up half the world's population, but don't nearly share half of the world's wealth, well-being and opportunity. Two-thirds of the world poor are women, disproportionally exposing women to precarious living conditions, disease and unmitigated natural disasters. The media, meanwhile, remains a male-dominated sector in much of the world, contributing to women's voices lacking a crucial amplifier to put their concerns on political agendas and unleash the development potential of their ingenuity. Rather than then stereotypical victims of local and global forces, women are also organizer, innovators, conservators and community builders. These are some of their stories.
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