Gender

Power of Creative Expression during Lockdown

By Fairuz Ahmed
Screens, devices, and smartphones replaced the human touch and day-to-day interactions as COVID-19 protocols forced millions of people into harsh lockdowns and prolonged isolation.

Astronaut Sirisha Bandla on How ‘You Often Don’t See’ Women of Colour in Space

In the latest edition of The Interview, Indian-American astronaut Sirisha Bandla speaks to Hindustan Times and talks about the gender bias that she thinks exists in the aeronautical field. She talks about stars, describes how she gradually fell for the space environment and how space exploration became a passion for her. On July 12, the 34-year-old aeronautical engineer became the third Indian-American woman to fly into space when she joined British billionaire Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic's first fully-crewed successful suborbital test flight from the US state of New Mexico. Watch the full video for more.

We Were Born to Do This!

By Yasmine Sherif
The first time I visited South Sudan in 2004 - prior to its independence - I travelled across the entire the country which was then a region devastated by man’s inhumanity to man. Although South Sudan is slightly larger than France, I could find only one concrete school building in Rumbek.

The ‘Covid-19 Timebomb’ – Dispelling the Single- Story Humanitarian Narrative for Africa

By Jeremy Allouche
An article published in April 2020 by the World Economic Forum warning that Africa was facing a Covid-19 time bomb was widely shared among the humanitarian sector, with increasing alarm.

UN Preaches Transparency to the Outside World but Fails to Practice it in its Own Backyard

By Thalif Deen
The United Nations has long preached the wisdom of transparency and accountability to the outside world, but has failed to practice the same principles in its own backyard – or even on the 39th floor of the Secretary-General’s office in the UN Secretariat.

Between Horror and Hope in the Villages of Ituri

By Elena L. Pasquini
“We have buried twenty-eight people. I have seen them with my own eyes. We also found three bodies in the fields and buried them too. I can show them to you. It’s not far from here. We buried them there.” The man points to the hills. He doesn’t want to show his face or say his name, but he agrees that his voice can be recorded, so that his words don’t get lost. The camera can’t shoot him; it can only look at the tall grass or at the forest towards the countryside where it is no longer possible to cultivate food. The man talks while music from Lengabo’s catholic church marks the time of truce and hope.

Muslim Women in India’s Workforce: Where Are They?

Muslims are the largest minority community in India, and yet, they are highly underrepresented both in public and private institutions. According to a study conducted by the Economic Times Intelligence Group in 2015, Muslims constituted approximately 2.7 percent of mid to senior executives in the private sector. As of April 2018, only 1.33 percent of officers in the central government, holding the rank of joint secretary and above, were found to be Muslims. 

DR Congo, Ituri. Fleeing War, Weaving Life in IDP Camps of Bunia

By Elena L. Pasquini
He moves aside the curtain, thin as gauze, and then bends over. The darkness dazzles for a few seconds when one enters the house—actually, a den made of earth where air and light filter through the narrow entrance. Jean de Dieu Amani Paye holds her tiny baby, wrapped in an elegant fabric, in his arms. He was a teacher of French and Latin and had a small business. He also cultivated the land: cassava, corn, sorghum, and beans.

German Development Agency Raises Awareness of Teen Pregnancy in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, Honorine Meda has been trained by the German Development Agency (GIZ) to raise awareness among teenage girls about pregnancy. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says all children have a right to education, adolescent girls who fall pregnant in Sub Saharan Africa tend to drop out of school. Meda and a group of model parents, also trained by GIZ, play an essential role in preventing teenage pregnancies and supporting learners, who fall pregnant, to get back to school.

To Prevent Teenage Pregnancies in Sub Saharan Africa, It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child

By IPS Correspondent
Honorine Meda is 23. Cycling through her hometown of Dissin, in Burkina Faso’s verdant southwest, she smiles, waves and stops to chat with one of the girls she counsels.

Honour Killings – Religion or Culture?

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
There is nothing honourable about murder. And murdering someone of your own family, your own child - a daughter, someone you held in your arms and rocked to sleep when they were babies? This is such a horrifying crime that there are no words to describe it – certainly not the word Honour. And yet it happens! It happens in Pakistan and to the shame of all of us in the diaspora, it has been brought to Italy.

UNFPA Calls for Protection & Justice for Women & Girls in Tigray

By Julitta Onabanjo
The 2018 Nobel Laureate, Dr. Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist celebrated for his work with survivors of sexual assault in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Panzi Hospital once said: “Rape is a strategy of war – it is meant to destroy women and communities physically and mentally”.

Protecting Plants Will Protect People and the Planet

By Barbara Wells
Back-to-back droughts followed by plagues of locusts have pushed over a million people in southern Madagascar to the brink of starvation in recent months. In the worst famine in half a century, villagers have sold their possessions and are eating the locusts, raw cactus fruits, and wild leaves to survive.

Need for the Creation of a Real National Public Health System in Nepal

By Simone Galimberti
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstall the House of Representatives and appoint-- after a prolonged and nasty legal battle-- a new Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, there is high probability that a government of national unity will be put together in Nepal.

We Can Prevent the Bankruptcy of the Sacred – Dare we Try?

By Azza Karam
The UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) came to a conclusion on July 15th. Another HLPF, another series of declaration, and commitments and concerns articulated by governments.

Shortages Reveal Low Priority of Women’s Health in Nepal

By Marty Logan
One year after Nepal’s Ministry of Health (MoH) appealed to international organisations in the country to urgently supply a drug used to stop excessive bleeding after childbirth, a UN agency has delivered $1 million worth of contraceptives to prevent another shortage.

Conceptual Advances for United Nations 2.0

By Cristina Petcu
The UN Secretary-General’s forthcoming “Our Common Agenda” report, to be released before this year’s UN General Assembly High-Level Week, is expected to offer ambitious recommendations to accelerate the realization of the UN75 Declaration as the world comes to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Fight for the “Lost Souls.”

By Rosi Orozco
In June, the Department of Homeland Security made a critical announcement. For the first time in U.S. history, more than 15 national and local agencies and civilian organizations conducted a simultaneous major binational operation to find missing children inside and outside the United States.

‘Sulli Deals’: Muslim Women in India Being Put Up for Sale

By Sania Farooqui
Ongoing online sexual harassment of Muslim women through ‘Sulli Deals’, an auctioning app hosted by GitHub, has been reported to the authorities – but not before it called untold trauma to the targeted women.

Nothing About Us, Without Us, Asian Youth Tell Parliamentarians

By IPS Correspondent
Youth advocates from Asian countries called for an overhaul of a system that excluded young people from participation in policymaking. During an interaction with parliamentarians from 23 countries, youth representatives considered an enabling political framework to be the most crucial reform required to remove inequities.

A Film Challenging Religious Norms

By Sania Farooqui
When Turkish- Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Ozkal Lorentzen heard about Seyran Ates’ mixed gender mosque in Berlin, Germany, she immediately decided to make a film on Seyran’s life. It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.
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