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Thursday, November 12, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Gender
SRI LANKA: Parliamentarian Breaks Silence on Domestic Violence
She became famous playing the role of ‘Pabha’, a poor young girl in love with a rich man in a long running hit television series here. But these days, Upeksha Suwarnamali is better known for her real-life role: A victim of domestic violence turned champion of abused women.DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Managing Mental Illness on a Few Pesos a Month
Cristina, 41, was able to support the last two of her five children despite the fact that she could neither read nor write. Raised by a step-grandfather, she started working as a house cleaner when she was 14 and had the misfortune to have children by two alcoholic and abusive men.
Q&A: “Women Must Be Part of the Peace Equation”
Eleven years ago, 192 countries – all the United Nations member states – agreed to step up the integration of women in international peacebuilding and security processes, a promise that has remained largely unmet.Impunity for Killers of Women in Strife-torn Kashmir
Fracha Begam has been unable to come to terms with the deaths of her two teenage daughters, killed by unknown gunmen in the latest incident of violence against women in the Kashmir Valley.
MOZAMBIQUE: Educator in the Foothills of Her Political Career
If women like Judith Mussacula realise their aspirations to become the next generation of Mozambican politicians, the country's future will be in safe hands.
Integrating HIV Care with Broader Maternal and Child Health
From the outside, little has changed at the Maternal and Child Healthcare Clinic: pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers wait patiently on wooden benches. A chorus of infant call-and-response betrays the less long-suffering approach of their children to the wait.FILM: What a Palestinian Girl Saw Through Her Window
At the 331st meeting of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held at United Nations headquarters Thursday, delegates made speeches most likely doomed to be lost in the abyss of countless Security Council resolutions, numerous rulings by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the basic provisions of the Geneva Conventions.POLITICS-ZAMBIA: Days of Male Domination Numbered
Elizabeth Phiri was so incensed when she was overlooked as a parliamentary candidate for the Patriotic Front in a 2008 by-election on the basis of her gender that she quit the party. Four years on, she has rejoined the party but remains pessimistic - but other women politicians see reasons to hope the 2011 elections will be different.Agricultural Policy Is Gender Policy
Eva, a Ghanian woman, was given five pigs and some training on how best to care for them. Eventually, her farm grew to 400 pigs and she was able to buy more land and a motorbike which she not only used for transporting her goods to market but for helping neighbours get to town and to hospital quicker.SOUTH AFRICA: Convention To Secure Decent Work for Domestic Workers
Despite formal recognition of domestic workers' rights in South Africa, they still face a struggle for fair treatment.
PAKISTAN: Unsung Heroines Bring Healthcare to Villages
At eight in the morning 30-year-old Sultana Solangi steps out of her house ready for her day’s work. Wearing a black gown that shows only her eyes, she is shod in comfortable slippers and lugs a large black bag.MALAWI: Uncertainty Over Role for Traditional Birth Attendants
When the ban on traditional birth attendants was lifted last year, pregnant women quickly appeared at Dorothy Chirwa's door in Malombe village in Mangochi, a district on the southern shores of Lake Malawi. Chirwa was among the thousands of TBAs banned from providing women with care in 2007.
PAKISTAN: Deaths of ‘Unwanted’ Babies On The Rise
The graves at a cemetery in Moach Goth have no epitaphs, no verses from the Koran, not even the names of the deceased. The only inscription on the small wooden signs that serve as headstones is a number and the date of burial. The latest one is Number 72,315.
Q&A: Needing Surgery Shouldn’t Be a Death Sentence
Surgery saves the lives of millions of people around the world, but only a tiny percentage of them live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where a shortage of skills, supplies and infrastructure can turn easily treatable accidents and illnesses into lifelong disabilities and even death.Botswana Parliament’s Speaker a Well-Loved Woman
It would have been hard for a teenaged Margaret Nnananyana Nasha to imagine that she would grow up to become one of the most powerful figures in Botswana's government.PAKISTAN: At Home, and In Hell
"Life is next to hell as we pass the entire day and night inside four walls of our houses. Militancy and the local male-dominated culture are the reasons for the women’s problems," says Jabeena Bibi, 38, a resident of Khyber Agency, one of the seven tribal districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan.INDIA: 60 Registered Rapes a Day
It was just past 9 p.m. of Feb. 1 when guards of the Ernakulam-Shornur train found 23-year-old Soumya, an accountant, unconscious near the railway tracks at Vettikkattiri in Thrissur district, Kerala state.
Mauritian Women Dreaming of Active Politics
"We have had enough of the training given to us in cooking, sewing and household works... We now have another dream: of participating actively in the development of our island at decision-making level," says Marie-Anne Laganne, a political trainer at Women In Politics.Q&A: ‘Women Are Shackled During Childbirth’
Female Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel are often denied legal representation and medical care while being housed in squalid conditions that can include sharing cells with rodents.WOMEN’S DAY: Without Grassroots, the Tree Will Not Stand
Women from grassroots organisations all across the globe arrived in New York this week for a five-day summit dedicated to bolstering female and community- based representation at all levels of political decision making.The New Egypt: Leaving Women Behind
Marwa Sharaf el-Din, an Egyptian law PhD candidate at Oxford University, spent part of International Women's Day in Tahrir Square this afternoon to perform Zajal, a popular traditional form of Arabic poetry.« 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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