Gender Violence

U.S. Finally Passes Stronger Protections for Women against Abuse

By Carey L. Biron
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday ended more than a year of stonewalling a piece of legislation that for two decades has offered legal protections for women against sexual violence, harassment and abuse.
Yifat Susskind Photo_400

Q&A: No “Us” and “Them” in Fight for Women’s Rights

By Marzieh Goudarzi
As the earthquake in Haiti has proven, even more important than a recognised name or robust physical presence is the quality of services delivered by humanitarian relief organisations.
Rizana Nafeek

24 Nails Dug Into Body, Luckily

By Amantha Perera
Lahandapurege Ariyawathie feels she got off lightly - if returning home with 24 nails embedded in your body is lucky.

Modern Slavery Rears its Ugly Head in Chile

By Marianela Jarroud
In recent years, Chile has become a source, transit, and destination hub for human trafficking victims, experts say. According to judicial authorities, forced labour and sexual exploitation are the crimes most frequently associated with this "modern form of slavery”.

‘Marks of Manhood’ Fuel Gender-Based Violence

By George Gao
Some of the most harrowing cases of gender-based violence Kathryn Bolkovac came across while working as a U.N. human rights investigator in Bosnia involved a perpetrator dubbed “the Doctor” by the women and girls he abused.

From Exploitation to Education

By Gordon Brown
Next Monday, after more than two months of public anger against the rape of a young Indian student, the Indian Parliament will consider new legislation to toughen up judicial and police provisions addressing violence against women.

‘Justice is Blind – But Not in the Case of Gender Violence’

By Fatima Asmal
On Tuesday, Feb. 19, famous South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder, with prosecutors arguing the athlete had "put on his prosthetic legs, walked seven metres and fired four shots through a locked bathroom door,” killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day.
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OP-ED: Making Cities Safe for Women and Girls

By Michelle Bachelet
There is no city or country in the world where women and girls live free of the fear of violence. No leader can claim: This is not happening in my backyard.

Female Journalists Walk on Eggshells in Sri Lanka

By Amantha Perera
The year was 1998 and porters at the wholesale vegetable market in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo had gone on strike, virtually suspending vegetable distribution in the city and its suburbs.

Q&A: FGM Is About Culture, Not Religion

By Marzieh Goudarzi
The fight against female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) continues to gain traction around the world.

Domestic Violence Taking High Toll in Armenia

By Gayane Abrahamyan
Increasingly the issue of domestic violence in Armenia is a topic for public discussion. Yet greater attention to the issue isn’t yet translating into an expansion of programmes to alleviate suffering and address policy shortcomings.
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Q&A: It’s the Beginning of the End for FGM

By Rousbeh Legatis
Journalists can play a crucial role in helping to shift traditional attitudes within societies where the cruel practice of female genital mutilation is an everyday reality.

Law Makes it Honourable to Kill

By Mel Frykberg
“Before she was murdered, she wasn’t alive. We’ll tell her story backwards from her murder to her birth”…so begins a powerful new song by critically acclaimed Palestinian hip-hop band DAM to draw attention to the continuing murder of Palestinian women by male relatives declaring that “family honour” has been damaged by alleged sexual indiscretions.

Some Call for Death – Others Call for Justice

By Sujoy Dhar
On a chilly Wednesday evening, exactly a month after a young woman was gang-raped and brutalised on a moving bus in New Delhi, hundreds of sombre citizens gathered at a candlelight protest in India’s national capital.

Iraqi Women Seek a New Liberation

By Karlos Zurutuza
From full literacy declared in the seventies, Iraq is down to 40 percent literacy for women. From the first woman prime minister and the first woman judge in the Middle East in 1959, Iraq has slipped to a place where an abnormal number of widows struggle, and where child marriages are on the rise. Hanaa Edwar is putting up a fight to win Iraqi women their freedoms again.

A Hundred Killed, A Community Cornered

By Zofeen Ebrahim
"I want justice,” says Shukria Jamali, 20. “But I wouldn't want my worst enemies to feel the intense pain I am feeling now."

New Push for U.S. to Ratify Major Women’s Treaty

By Thalif Deen
The United States continues to be in the dubious company of six countries that have either refused or are reluctant to ratify the landmark U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Yemeni Women Struggle to Step Forward

By Rebecca Murray
Yemeni women have played an integral role in the protests against ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year regime last year. But despite the country’s upcoming political ‘National Dialogue’ - brokered by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and intended to bring together a cross-section of Yemeni constituencies - females still face a wall of discriminatory laws and practices, and a status quo willing to enforce them.

New Feminism Tears Down Walls in Brazil

By Fabiana Frayssinet
Anarkia Boladona has turned the streets of Brazil into billboards against domestic violence. As a self-titled feminist political graffiti artist, she represents a new trend in women’s rights that seeks less academic and more daring and popular avenues of expression.
Alvilda Jablonko. Credit: Julia Kallas/IPS

Q&A: Global Ban Another Tool in the Fight Against FGM

By Julia Kallas
For the estimated 140 million girls and women living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is already too late. But since a global ban on FGM was passed at the end of last year, activists hope many more will now escape this brutal practice.

Bought, Sold and Abused in Yemen

By Rebecca Murray
Twenty-one-year-old Aisha clings to her two children as she recounts her tale of horror. Growing up in the Somali capital Mogadishu, she fell in love and bore a child out of wedlock four years ago. When her family threatened her life for destroying her ‘honour’, Aisha escaped.
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