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Saturday, November 14, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Gender
POLITICS-NAMIBIA: ‘Parties Totally Don’t Care About Women’s Rights’
Gender activists foresee a drop in female parliamentarians after Namibia’s general and presidential elections on November 27 and 28. It’s a trend that jeopardises the region’s goal of 50 percent female representation in politics by 2015.GUATEMALA: Sex Education, Family Planning Finally Available
Social organisations in Guatemala are celebrating the entry into effect of a family planning law that will usher sex education into the country's classrooms and facilitate access to birth control methods, as a victory in the fight against the country's high birth and maternal and infant mortality rates.
GENDER-SOUTH AFRICA: ‘There Is A Sense Of Vindication’
Born in a squatter camp in Orlando East and raised by a single mother; working in a factory while completing secondary school by correspondence; arrested and banned by the apartheid government: South Africa's ambassador to Italy is an example of the long road her country has travelled.LABOUR-MEXICO: Manufacturing Poverty for Women
A group of workers in Honduras managed to prevent the closure of an assembly plant manufacturing sportswear for the U.S.-based sports apparel maker Russell Athletic, thereby saving 1,200 jobs.
MEDIA: The Untold Stories of Violence Against Women
"You don’t need to go far, it is all around us," said Robert Dijksterhuis, head of the gender division in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to a room mostly full of women. "Up to one in three women around the world has been abused in some way - most often by someone she knows," he added, quoting UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) numbers.
PERU: IACHR Calls for Justice for Victims of Forced Sterilisation
The Peruvian government is once again being called on to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Voluntary Surgical Contraception (VSC) programme carried out by the Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) regime, under which tens of thousands of women were forcibly sterilised. This time, the demand comes from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
RIGHTS-LAOS: Lapses with Labour – Part 2
"Most workers have limited knowledge, ultimately you don't know how many hidden killers are in your workplace. The boss knows, but he won't tell you," Wang Fengping, an engineer who was once employed by Hong Kong-based Gold Peak batteries at their factory in Guongdong, China.Q&A: “We Have Linked Machismo and Femicide in the Public Mind in Chile”
More than 500 Chilean women have been killed by their partners, ex-partners or strangers since 2001. This year alone, there have been 52 "femicides", economist Gloria Maira said on Wednesday, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
RIGHTS: U.N. Recruits Men to Help End Violence Against Women
Marking the 10th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a Network of Men Leaders to battle violence against women and girls here Tuesday.RIGHTS-FRANCE: Domestic Violence – Everybody’s Business
Several people are gathered outside a window, staring wide-eyed at a scene within. They watch as a man brutally beats a woman, pounding her face with his fists, kicking her. No one says anything, until an onlooker screams agonisingly: "stop".
LITERATURE/WOMEN: “When a Woman Wins, It is Still a Story”
The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 102 times to 106 Nobel laureates between 1901 and 2009. Only 10 of those winners were women. Meanwhile, the Man Booker Prize has been awarded to 15 women in 40 years.
GENDER: For U.S., Lessons in CEDAW From San Francisco
In 1998, San Francisco stepped up and joined the world.
PERU: Parties Thwart Public Demand for Women in Politics
Women already make up 44 percent of the active members of the country's parties, but Peruvians want to see more women in political posts. Party structures and a lack of funding for women candidates, however, conspire to hinder and even obliterate women's participation in public decision-making bodies.
INDIA: Women As Hindu Priests Have An Edge
Defying Hindu orthodoxy and intolerant male priests, women in Maharashtra state, western India, have revived a Vedic tradition and become priests.RELIGION-BALKANS: Death of Patriarch Brings Controversies Into Spotlight
It is not often that anything in Serbia can bring several hundred thousand people together, but that is exactly what happened Thursday when the Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), was buried in a monastery graveyard near Belgrade.
Q&A: Glass Half-full 15 Years After ICPD – Part 2
Fifteen years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the glass is half full, according to Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). And not much better for the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) after 30 years.INDIA: Women’s Political Empowerment, Yes; Better Lives, No
Despite getting suitably politically empowered, women in India continue to lag behind on almost all crucial developmental parametres like education, health and economic participation.GENDER-AFRICA: Some Progress Amidst Continuing Challenges
The Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 set out an agenda to address gender equality in priority areas, including poverty, education, and health care. It also committed governments to address violence against women, equitable access to economic resources and decision-making power.LEBANON: Migrant Women Dying on the Job
October and November have been bloody months for Lebanon's migrant domestic workers - over the last five weeks nine women have died. Most deaths have been reported as suicide.POLITICS: U.N. in Final Push for 2015 Development Goals
A special U.N. summit of world leaders, scheduled to take place next year, is expected to make "a final push" to help reach the world body's widely-touted development goals by the targeted date of 2015.RIGHTS-MEXICO: State Held Responsible for Three Juarez Killings
The families of three young women murdered in Ciudad Juárez, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua on the border with the United States, had to wait eight years for justice, which they finally obtained through the inter-American system.« 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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