Issues & Analysis

It may be splitting hairs over what is and is not slavery, but mislabelling paid workers as slaves could harm their cause.

Organizations and feminists, academics and human rights women networks from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, here undersigned, participants of the international seminar “Incidence on the Network: The Challenge of States to Fulfill Women’s Human Rights”, held from May 7 to May 10, 2013 in Mexico City, express the following:

Aswat- Palestinian Gay Women was recently invited to attend a reception hosted by the US Embassy in honor of the LGBTQI community in Israel, planned for Thursday 16th May. Enquiring about speakers at the event, Aswat learned that no Palestinian LGBTQI activists had been approached to speak, and that only Jewish Israeli campaigners were invited to speak. Despite requests on our part to be included in the list of speakers, the Embassy repeatedly made the excuse that arrangements had been finalized and that there had not been room to include us in the list of speakers.

A government decree in Armenia that bars pregnant women who are not residents of Yerevan from receiving free childbirth services in the capital is causing discontent in outlying regions.

The issue of domestic workers’ rights in the Middle East has plagued Ethiopian women for years, with ongoing reports of abuse, neglect and sexual violence often coming to the forefront of media across the region.

Latin American states are still failing to provide guarantees for women’s educational, sexual and reproductive rights, according to activists from different regions of the world meeting in the Mexican capital.

“No Justice? No Peace!” Never has this chant, which I have heard so often at anti-war rallies, felt so real to me as during the last few months observing the ongoing peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas.

During the rebel takeover of northern Mali in April 2012, many women said they were subjected to rape or sexual assault.

This year’s 46^th session of the UN Commission on Population and Development took place between 21 and 26^th April 2013 and reviewed the theme “New trends in migration: demographic aspects”.

In the wake of the tragic and preventable death of Savita Halappanavar, Irish politicians promised that this government would ‘not become the seventh to “neglect and ignore” the issue of the Supreme Court ruling abortion on the X Case’.

The world is waking up to the fact that sexual violence is wreaking havoc on the lives of women and communities in conflict zones—and poses a real threat to lasting peace.

Militarisation of indigenous territories force women to face unconscionable abuses based on gender discrimination.

Members of Hifazat-e Islam, a radical Islamist party in Bangladesh, attacked female journalists on assignment as the group marched in the country's capital to demand strict Islamic law, including a ban on free mixing of the sexes and punishment of “atheists and blasphemous bloggers”.

“Being a woman is not a tool to punish or humiliate anyone – No free society without free women”

As Heads of State from Mexico, Central America and the United States prepare to meet for the Summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA) in Costa Rica on May 4 and 5th, JASS (Just Associates), the America's Program, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA and the Latin America Working Group collaborated to present a letter that has been signed by over 145 international, regional and local organizations from 10 countries in the Americas. 

The face of migration is changing dramatically as women and girls now represent about half of the over 214 million migrants worldwide.

Of the three sets of local elections Armenia will hold this year, the one that women’s rights activists will be watching most closely is the May 5 ballot in the capital Yerevan, where female representation is lagging behind the rest of the country.

Attorney Angeli R. Rasbury "leaned in" to graduate from law school, pass the bar (on her first attempt) and beat a fail-out statistic haunting African American peers. But some of the Facebook COO's take-charge advice is strictly Silicon Valley.

Human rights lawyer and Board Chair of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) Zarizana Aziz talks with IMOW about the plural nature of the Muslim community, diversity in laws that govern women's bodies, and how WLUML has taken action on behalf of Muslim women everywhere.

The government of Ecuador is determined to curb the growing number of teen pregnancies, and has begun to knock down barriers that stand in the way of the right to a responsible sexual and reproductive life.

Members of an Islamic movement for women are said to be embarrassed by their leader's allegiance to the embattled Assad regime. The movement is credited with advancing the cause of Islamist female education in the region.

So you’ve got proper online security, strong passwords, and great software all good to go. But are there other kinds of threats you may face online? What about abuse, verbal violence and harassment that no firewall or plug-in can prevent?

Women hold 39 percent of management positions in Norway, but fewer than 10 percent in Germany. But, the German parliament has rejected quotas for top positions with the votes of the governing coalition.

Highlights of a conversation with international leaders on transforming conflict featuring Abigail Disney, Madeleine Rees, Jody Williams, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Lydia Alpízar Durán, and The Honorable Shinkai Karokhail.

In a London boardroom [on April 10] a new era in the longstanding fight to stop gender violence in conflict will be ushered in.

Sex and violence are a part of life in the small Brazilian fishing town of Jaci Parana, where police struggle to keep up with crime as a nearby hydroelectric construction project in the state of Rondonia pumps money into the local economy.

Attempts to chip away at the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide via state laws is setting the stage for pro- and anti-women's health states, say Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo in this excerpt from "Crow After Roe."

When President Obama elicited outrage for saying that Attorney General Kamala Harris was “by far the best-looking attorney general in the country,” his defenders jumped to say that people offended by the comment should “lighten up,” or focus on more serious threats to women’s rights.

As the violent conflict in Syria rages on, women are increasingly playing a vital role on multiple fronts to bring about change to Syria’s historical gender inequality.

A.C. has spent her life striving to be perfect, in looks and behavior alike.

"Safe Streets” campaign, Anti-Streets Harassment in Yemen launches on the 7th April 2013 their Hotline to receive reports on sexual harassment in the streets, in accordance with the International Anti Street Harassment Week 7th– 13th April, 2013

Marisol is an indigenous leader in Cochabamba, Bolivia who, like many indigenous women, had to migrate to the city in search of better opportunities.

In the early hours of the last day of the recent UN Commission on the Status of Women 57, the chair resolved a crippling stalemate by creating a new document.

Tensions are rising between secular Tunisian women and political Islam. "There is no room for the opposition and women to participate in building the country we want," says one critic.

Despite recent advances and increases in social services spending in Equador, widespread disparities and inequalities in access to health care remain, and access to safe or legal abortion services is nonexistent.

Since the 1980s with the rise of economic globalization and technological advances in the area of information and communications technologies, finance is increasingly a part of the everyday life for many.

Across East and South Asia, demographers and policymakers have long struggled with the imbalance between the numbers of boys and girls being born. The natural proportion should be approximately 105 boys for every 100 girls, but, in parts of these regions, ratios have risen as high as 130 or even 140 to 100.

Video of events held November 24-25, 2012 and organized by the Women Coalition for Change.

They set out on February 25, from different parts of a country torn apart. In silent defiance, they entered the capital city of Tegucigalpa on March 6.

While health experts applaud Nepal’s declining maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in recent years, they say this gain is unsustainable if the country does not address its lack of qualified health staff, especially midwives, to keep women in childbirth alive.

The huge impact of the economic crisis on male employment in Portugal has led to a sharp increase in the proportion of women who have become the main breadwinners in their families. But that has not translated into progress towards equality.

This statement was delivered by women's rights organizations at the international NGO conference "Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda" that was held from 20-22 March 2013 in Bonn, Germany.

On February 13, 2013, Nicholas Kristof gave a talk at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. His talk, titled Striving for Global Justice, was based on his bestselling book and documentary, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women World Wide.

Each year some 47,000 women around the world die as a result of unsafe abortions. Efforts to reduce that toll are severely hampered by the Helms amendment, which was originally enacted in 1973 and restricts the use of United States foreign aid money to finance abortions overseas, even in places where abortion is legal.

The search to replace Michelle Bachelet as executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women will begin “very soon,” according to the spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, through a routine high-level appointment process.

A decade after the US invasion of Iraq, only one of the straw-man arguments for going to war remains standing: “We did it for democracy and women’s rights."

On February 12, 2013, women of the Middle East, in the region and in the Diaspora, officially and publicly re-appropriated shame and honour. Suddenly, they are wearing the experience of surviving sexual terrorism and violence as a badge of honour, using their tragedy to fight for an end to violence against women.

What happened to the largest pot of money ever made available for advancing gender equality and human rights? Srilatha Batliwala reports on the results of AWID's aggregate analysis of the impact of the MDG 3 Fund.

New Delhi: Women's rights activist on Tuesday criticised the government for failing to finalise an anti-rape law after difference erupted between various ministries on several ordinances and accused them of lacking political will to bring a stronger law for protection of women.

RUMBEK, LAKES STATE, 8 March 2013 (IRIN) - Years after the end of South Sudan’s war with Sudan, the country’s women still find themselves on the front line - this time, battling abuse, child marriage, and a dowry system that commodifies them from birth. 

On the occasion of the Presentation of the Mission to Honduras Report by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya

MARIA DO MAR PEREIRA 8 March 2013

Gender Studies is an increasingly established and influential area of study and research, however it continues to be the object of sustained mocking within, and beyond, academia. This allegedly ‘innocent teasing’ has significant and negative effects, says Maria do Mar Pereira.

International Women's Day, observed every March 8, is a global celebration of women's economic, political and social achievements. Sadly, gender equality for women remains an ongoing struggle — especially for women in the Middle East. Sedef Küçük examines the challenges women still face — in her native Turkey and elsewhere in the region — and what Western democracies can do to help.

Remarks of Michelle Bachelet United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women at the International Women’s Day Commemorative Event at the United Nations.8 March 2013.

Men are, by a huge margin, the sex responsible for violent, sexual and other serious crime. The economic cost of this ‘masculine excess’ in delinquency is staggering - to say nothing of its emotional toll. Why is the social shaping of masculinity not an urgent policy issue?

Today sees the launch of a new Global Campaign to Stop Stoning. Rochelle Terman examines the history of this gendered practice of violence against women. With stoning, as with all forms of culturally-justified violence against women, it is very difficult to see where culture ends and politics begin.

The death of Reeva Steenkamp has highlighted the problematic way in which the media treat the issue of domestic violence.  We need a better way to transmit and therefore tackle the reality – how violence is built into our lives and how space is gendered, says Heather McRobie.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 4 2013 (IPS) - The U.N. has opened up public platforms to engage the world on how best to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and frame a new development agenda, post-2015.

Among all the social movements of the past century, the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality has been the most transformative in terms of the deep tectonic shifts it has created in the social terrain, yet skepticism about the value of funding women's rights work persists

India is among a handful of countries that witness the maximum number of horrific acid attacks on women. The male perpetrators disfigure women as a form of revenge. They get hold of the corrosive chemical without difficulty, and have little fear of the law. The victims die a hundred deaths.