Gender

Buenos Aires Offers Same-Sex Marriage to Foreign Couples

By Marcela Valente
Foreign non-residents, gay or straight, can now get married in the Argentine capital, thanks to a resolution that removed bureaucratic obstacles and streamlined the procedure.
Jovana Ríos Cisnero promotes sexual and reproductive health and rights with the Panamanian Family Planning Association. Credit: Photo courtesy of Jovana Ríos Cisnero

Q&A: How Sex Education Programs Can Shape a Better Future

By Aline Jenckel
In Latin American countries and in the Caribbean, where income disparities are among the greatest in the world, too many people often lack access to comprehensive health services and information needed to live healthy lives.
Queueing up for arsenic-free water in Bangladesh. Credit: NGO Forum

Caught Between Diarrhoea Bugs and Arsenic

By Naimul Haq
Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of providing access to safe drinking water for its 160 million people by 2015 is a tough call for Bangladesh, which is caught between arsenic contaminated groundwater and diarrhoea-causing microbes in its ponds and rivers.

Cuban Activists Defend Sexual Rights as Human Rights

By Ivet González
The Fifth Cuban Day Against Homophobia focused on recognising and including sexual rights as human rights, a cause increasingly advocated by activists demanding respect for sexual diversity in this Caribbean island nation.
A pregnant woman in Kenya

Maternal Deaths Drop By Nearly Half

By Thalif Deen
The statistics have remained staggering: every two minutes, a woman dies of pregnancy and child birth-related complications caused primarily by severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure and unsafe abortions.

No Celebration for Mothers of the Missing in Mexico

By Daniela Pastrana
Emma Veleta and Toribio Muñoz were married 40 years ago and had seven children, four boys and three girls. They lived in the town of Anáhuac, 100 km from the capital of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. But on Jun. 19, 2011, as they were celebrating Father’s Day, tragedy struck.

Obama’s Gay Marriage Endorsement Makes Waves in the Caribbean

By Peter Richards
It is a widely recognised cliché that when the United States sneezes, the Caribbean catches cold.
Jane Karuku, the new AGRA boss, dreams of seeing smallholder farmers become the drivers in Africa

Q&A: Women Farmers Are Key to a Food-Secure Africa

By Busani Bafana
While women constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one because of cultural and social barriers.

Trans Community Celebrates Groundbreaking Gender Identity Law

By Marcela Valente
Under a new law that recognises a broad range of rights for transvestites, transsexuals and transgender persons in Argentina, they will have the right to modify their legal documents to match their gender identity.
With extremist violence on the rise, many Tunisians believe the revolution never ended, and that a second wave of protest is not far off. Credit: scossargilbert/CC-BY-2.0

Tunisia’s Revolution is Just Beginning

By Isolda Agazzi
Lingering violence, intolerance and oppression in Tunisia, following the ousting of former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, tells the revolutionaries who sparked the Arab Spring that their work is just beginning.
Malawi President Joyce Banda (left) and Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at a women

Africa’s Two Female Presidents Join Forces for Women

By Travis Lupick
The only two female heads of state in Africa, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Malawian President Joyce Banda, have just committed to using their positions to improve the lives of women across the continent.

Islamists Stall Gender Equality Bill

By Kafil Yamin
The fate of a gender equality bill pending in Indonesia’s parliament and aligned with the United Nations convention on the elimination of all forms discrimination against women (CEDAW) has become uncertain after falling afoul of powerful Islamist groups.
Rebecca Tavares: "Women's leadership should help the transition towards a green economy." Credit: Courtesy of U.N. Women

Q&A: “Women’s Leadership is Key to Ensuring Sustainable Development”

By Fabíola Ortiz
The vital role of women in creating a green economy will be highlighted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in Brazil in June.

Women and Children Look to Community Justice

By Catherine Wilson
A new community justice programme being rolled out in Papua New Guinea’s vast village court system is bringing international human rights-based laws to rural communities and boosting the protection and empowerment of women and children.
In Mauritania mobile phones are used in rural areas. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Q&A: Skipping Lunch to Afford a Mobile Phone in Africa

By Kristin Palitza and - -
On a continent of over one billion people, where half the population have mobile phones, the use of mobile communication and internet technologies is crucial to boost development in Africa.
Badi sex workers await rehabilitation. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

Caste Blocks Revamp of Nepal’s Sex Workers

By Naresh Newar
Social activists say that attempts to rehabilitate sex workers in this former monarchy call for special efforts to uplift the Badi, a Hindu caste that has for centuries been associated with entertainment and prostitution.

Women ‘Invisible’ in Myanmar

By Roberto Tofani
While Aung San Suu Kyi enjoys iconic status in Myanmar (also known as Burma), women remain invisible in this country steeped in Buddhist tradition and emerging from decades of military rule.
In countries like Mexico, where this indigenous baby was born, and Brazil, many mothers still give birth at home, attended by midwives. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

Modern Obstetrics and Midwives Need to Join Forces

By Fabiana Frayssinet
María dos Prazeres de Souza has lost count of the number of births "without a single death" she has attended as a midwife, an occupation that there is renewed interest in strengthening in traditional communities in Brazil where state services are not available or are not entirely acceptable for cultural reasons.

KYRGYZSTAN: Justice Elusive for Kidnapped Brides

By Azita Ranjbar
Even though she was kidnapped, pressured into marrying a man from a nearby village, and then abandoned without means to sustain herself and the couple's two young children, Totugul can't rely on Kyrgyzstan's courts for help.
Child combatants had been seen in the ranks of the Tuareg rebels in Mali. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Child Soldiers Used in Mali Conflict

By William Lloyd-George
It was tough for Hassan Toure to decide to stay in his small town on the outskirts of Kidal, in northern Mali. The government troops had withdrawn on Mar. 30, and several armed groups, including militias and bandits, were operating in the region.

OP-ED: Nobel Laureates and Students Discuss Role of Women in Human Rights

By Kerry Kennedy
Last week, in a lecture hall at the University of Illinois Chicago, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi took a reality many of us working in human rights know well, and drove it home with a story from her own nation, a land her government says she is no longer allowed to call home.
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