Gender

South-South Focus to Keep Pace with Rising Population

By Thalif Deen
When the world's rising population hit the historic seven billion milestone last October, the United Nations predicted that population growth will continue to increase, reaching an estimated 9.3 billion by the year 2050.

Sierra Leone Drafts a Development Plan for the Next 50 Years

By Tamba Tengbeh and Damon van der Linde
Fifty years ago when Sierra Leone gained independence after 150 years of colonial rule, with it came a feeling of optimism that along with a newfound control of its governance, the country would profit from its ample endowment of natural resources, like timber, fish, minerals and oil. Instead, in the last 50 years, the country has had 13 military coups and an 11-year civil war that left the economy in ruins and the country heavily reliant on foreign donor funding.

800,000 Kashmiris Haunted by Horror

By Sana Altaf

Maheen was nine years old when she witnessed the death of her elder brother. At the age of 10 she saw the dead body of her neighbour, killed in the crossfire between Kashmiri rebels and Indian security forces, his guts spilled out on the road.

Despite Rhetoric, Women Still Sidelined in Development Funding

By Charundi Panagoda
As U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro once put it, "Women hold the keys to unlocking the barriers to sustainable development."

Political and Economic Turmoil Threaten Women’s Progress

By Mathilde Bagneres
As UN Women celebrated its first birthday, its executive director Michelle Bachelet stressed that political upheveal and shrinking budgets are no excuse to push back the hard-won gains made by the women's movement globally.

Guatemala Heeds the Cries of Femicide Victims

By Danilo Valladares
The relentless wave of femicides in Guatemala, which has one of the highest female murder rates in the world, has prompted actions by the government, civil society groups, and two Nobel Peace laureates to try to put a stop to this brutal violence against women, which has reached horrific proportions.

BALKANS-SOCIETY: First Abused, Then Imprisoned

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
The women languishing in Serbia’s Pozarevac Penal Correctional Institution are victims twice over: survivors of decades of domestic violence, they have been imprisoned for killing their partners and often spend up to 15 years in jail.

ZAMBIA: Chinese Underage Sex Scandal Sparks Emotive Debate

By Lewis Mwanangombe
Zhang Daliu, 46, a carpenter from China never imagined himself in the dreadful confines of a stinking and overcrowded Zambian jail where conditions are so terrible that they lead to gastronomic disorders and skin diseases within days of confinement.

UGANDA: Rural Women’s Banks Ease Tough Times

By Wambi Michael
For most Ugandan women, obtaining a commercial loan to start a business has been very difficult. Many do not have the required collateral of land title deeds and many cannot afford the interest rates charged by commercial banks.

PAKISTAN-INDIA: Women Expose Secret Genital Cutting Rite

By Zofeen Ebrahim
"It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain," recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience.

U.S.: Forced Marriages Still an Ugly Secret

By Charundi Panagoda
Two years ago, 40-year-old Vidya Sri decided to leave the devastating marriage her parents had forced her into nearly two decades ago. Alone for the first time, she began an earnest quest for support groups, women's organisations or service providers who might help her in the healing process.

Senior Management Heads Roll at World Body

By Thalif Deen
As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon continues his search for a new team of senior managers for his second five-year term in office which began Jan. 1, two more heads have rolled at the world body.

LEBANON: Could a New Civil Law Unify a Divided Society?

By Mona Alami
Odette Klysinska, a Catholic French native, sits in her living room in an affluent neighbourhood in Beirut, clutching her will in one hand, shocked to learn that it is no longer legally valid in the country she now calls home.

JAMAICA: “Mama P” Faces Prejudice, Economic Challenges

By Zadie Neufville
Running on promises of job creation, economic growth and wider stakeholder consultations, Jamaica's most popular politician and the country's first female prime minister Portia Simpson Miller swept to power in a victory almost no one had predicted.

MALAWI: Street Vendors Lose Customers after Stripping Women Naked

By Claire Ngozo
A campaign to stop people buying merchandise from street vendors is gaining momentum in Malawi’s main cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu after the small-scale traders went on a rampage undressing women and girls wearing trousers, leggings, shorts and mini-skirts.

U.N. “Outraged” at Sexual Abuse by Peacekeepers in Haiti

By Thalif Deen
The Caribbean nation of Haiti, still struggling to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, is once again trying to cope with the sexual abuse of minors by U.N. peacekeepers - for the third time in five years.

Half of All Abortions Now Unsafe, Study Finds

By Mathilde Bagneres
The proportion of abortions deemed unsafe rose from 44 percent in 1995 to almost half (49 percent) in 2008, according to a new study released Thursday.

MEXICO: Even Educated Young Women Face Poor, Jobless Future

By Guadalupe Cruz Jaimes
The year 2012 started off with little promise for workers in Mexico, with analysts projecting job losses and wages below subsistence levels.

Women and gender recognised by UNFCCC

By IPS Correspondents
Days before the start of COP17 in Durban, the UNFCCC has formally recognised the Women and Gender Constituency, giving them full constituency status when the talks start in Durban at the end of November. Tinus de Jager reports that there will be a strong push for a gender-specific focus at the climate-change talks in South Africa

Climate Change – A silent killer in coastal Bangladesh

By IPS Correspondents
Bangladesh, a deltaic country that drains major Asian rivers like the Ganges and the Brahamputra, is highly vulnerable to climate change and the effects are already being felt in the coastal regions in the shape of salinity, frequent floods and land erosion. Farmers and fisherman are already turning into climate refugees and, in a buiness as usual scenario, the next decades could see millions of people displaced according to projections by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change.

Report Exposes “Survival Sex Trade” in Post-Earthquake Haiti

By Kanya D'Almeida
Eighteen-year-old "Kettlyne", a Haitian orphan living in the rubble-strewn Croix Deprez camp – one of the many remaining tent-cities that houses refugees from the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake – is unable to feed her three-year-old daughter.
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