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Wednesday, November 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Gender Violence
Pacific Islands Call for New Thinking to Implement Post-2015 Development Goals
As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of poverty-alleviation targets set by the United Nations, come to a close this year, countries around the world are taking stock of their successes and failures in tackling key developmental issues.
Battle Heats Up Over Legalisation of Sex Work in India
Thirty-six-year-old Chameli Devi, a sex worker operating out of New Delhi's G.B. Road - Asia's largest red-light district, housing an estimated 12,000 of India’s three million sex workers – is an unhappy woman these days.
Boko Haram Insurgents Threaten Cameroon’s Educational Goals
“I’d quit my job before going to work in a place like that.” That is how a primary school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in Cameroon’s Far North region.
India’s ‘Manual Scavengers’ Rise Up Against Caste Discrimination
Watching Bittal Devi deftly weave threads of different colours into a vibrant patchwork quilt, it’s hard to imagine that this 46-year-old’s hands have spent the better part of their life cleaning toilets.
Child Sex Crimes: Uruguay’s Ugly Hidden Face
Karina Núñez Rodríguez was only 12 when she was forced into prostitution. Now age 50 and a mother of six, she is an outspoken fighter against sexual exploitation of children and teenagers in Uruguay, a country reluctant to recognise this growing scourge.
Years in the Making, Arms Trade Treaty Enters into Force
A new Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) beginning on Dec. 24 represents a historic moment in global efforts to keep weapons proliferation in check.
Seeking Closure, Bougainville Confronts Ghosts of Civil War
Thirteen years after the peace agreement which ended a decade-long civil war in Bougainville, an autonomous island region of 300,000 people located east of the Papua New Guinean (PNG) mainland in the southwest Pacific Islands, trauma and grief continue to affect families and communities where the fate of the many missing remains unresolved.
Europe Dream Swept Away in Tripoli
It's easy to spot Saani Bubakar in Tripoli´s old town: always dressed in the distinctive orange jumpsuit of the waste collectors, he pushes his cart through the narrow streets on a routine that has been his for the last three years of his life.
Georgia Confronts Domestic Violence
The issue of domestic violence is moving to the forefront of public attention in Georgia after a series of killings of women at the hands of their respective spouses or ex-spouses made headlines in local mass media.
Groups Push Obama to Clarify U.S. Abortion Funding for Wartime Rape
Nearly two dozen health, advocacy and faith groups are calling on President Barack Obama to take executive action clarifying that U.S. assistance can be used to fund abortion services for women and girls raped in the context of war and conflict.
OPINION: Stand in Solidarity with Courageous Women’s Human Rights Defenders
Almost two decades ago, in Beijing, 189 countries made a commitment to achieve equality for women, in practice and in law, so that all women could at last fully enjoy their rights and freedoms as equal human beings.
U.N. Chief, Under Fire, Moves Closer to Gender Parity
When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named an international panel to review peacekeeping operations last October, the announcement was greeted with bitter criticism because it lacked even a semblance of gender balance: only three out of 14 members were women.
As Wars Multiply, U.N. Takes a Hard Look at Peace Operations
Finding ways to better integrate the two arms of U.N. Peace Operations - Special Political Missions and Peacekeeping Operations - will be one of the priorities for a new review panel headed by Nobel Peace Laureate and former president of Timor-Leste José Ramos-Horta.
HIV Prevention is Failing Young South African Women
When she found out that she had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Thabisile Mkhize (not her real name) was scared.
OPINION: All Family Planning Should Be Voluntary, Safe and Fully Informed
The tragic deaths and injuries of women following sterilisation in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh have sparked global media coverage and public concern and outrage.
Survivors of Sexual Violence Face Increased Risks
“A recurring nightmare for me is I’m trying to tell someone something and they are not listening. I’m yelling at the top of my lungs and it feels like there is a glass wall between us.”
Civil Society Freedoms Merit Role in Post-2015 Development Agenda
Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an advocacy NGO, is facing criminal charges for sending a tweet that said: “many Bahrain men who joined terrorism and ISIS have come from the security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator”.
True Gender Equality for Both Women and Men
Numerous international and national efforts have focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The United Nations, for example, has convened four world conferences on women - Beijing in 1995, Nairobi in 1985, Copenhagen in 1980 and Mexico City in 1975 - and Member States have adopted various international agreements, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
25 Years After Rights Convention, Children Still Need More Protection
Next week marks 25 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a historic commitment to children and the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history.
Women’s Safety Schemes Go Mobile in India
It was 9:45 pm when 23-year-old Manira Chaudhury, a final-year Master’s student in New Delhi, who was traveling home in a rickshaw, pressed a button on her smart phone that sent out emergency alerts to two of her closest friends.
Braving Dust storms, Women Plant Seeds of Hope
In the world’s largest refugee complex – the sprawling Dadaab settlement in Kenya’s North Eastern Province – women listen attentively during a business management workshop held at a hospital in one of its newest camps, Ifo 2.« Previous Page — Next Page »
One in three women around the world have been subject to violence. Women face physical, sexual, and psychological violence in both public and private. Taking forms such as violence in the intimacy of a relationship, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation, gender violence is an issue that affects women in all countries. Only two-thirds of countries have outlawed domestic violence, leaving millions of women unprotected from abuse including from marital and de facto partners in many cases. Additionally, through human trafficking countless women are subjected to sexual exploitation and sexual violence, including horrific acts such as genital mutilation. Today many actors from individuals, to multinational organizations work to address these issues. These articles help to shed light on the violence that women experience every day and how its is being addressed.
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
