FRIDAY FILE : It’s been one year since the abduction by Boko Haram of 276 female students from their boarding school in Chibok, Borno State in northeastern Nigeria. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign began following the kidnapping but the whereabouts of most of the young girls remains unknown[1]. AWID spoke to Nigerian and Cameroonian feminist activists to learn more about the situation of women and girls in Nigeria and neighboring countries as well as the national and international response, and challenges of taking appropriate and efficient action a year after the Chibok kidnappings.

In the global North, news headlines frequently play on deeply-rooted prejudices. For example, following the Oklahoma bombing in the US in 1995 or, more recently, the post-9-11 Washington sniper attacks, the media were quick to blame Muslim "terrorists." In both cases, the perpetrators turned out to be disaffected US nationals with no links to the Islamic world or faith. In Britain, and in Europe more generally, the media most often portray minorities as homogeneous groups, frequently represented by religious 'leaders'.

À chaque nouveau numéro, nous discutons avec une lectrice d’Affronter les fondamentalismes et partageons un bref récapitulatif des derniers évènements en lien avec la religion, la tradition, la culture et les efforts d’organisation pour les droits dans différents contextes. (Si vous avez une idée qu’il vous tiendrait à cœur de voir dans cette chronique, faites-le-nous savoir!)

In the field of gender and sexuality rights, representations of religion tend to be dominated by fundamentalisms, with dogma being used to justify discrimination, stigma and abuse against those who transgress the narrow confines of patriarchal and heterosexist norms.

Each issue, we chat with readers of Facing Fundamentalisms and share a brief summary of recent events relating to religion, tradition, culture and rights-based organizing in your contexts.

Over half a billion people voted in India’s general election in April and May 2014. For many the result was no surprise; having won 282 of 543 seats, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now holds power in the world’s largest democracy. The election, which was marked by a surge in women voters, and young women in particular, was attributed to women’s concerns about education, employment opportunities, and the rising tide of sexual and other forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

AWID recently spoke with a representative from the Myanmar/Burma Women’s Network and the Women’s League of Burma about the proposed ‘Law On the Protection of Race and Religion’.

At the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean conference (ECLAC) Regional Conference on Population and Development in Montevideo, Uruguay in August 2013, AFM launched an innovative and engaging campaign calling on passersby to "Talk to God" without intermediaries, via a telephone booth.

Hassan Rouhani has now passed the six-month mark as Iran’s President, after his landslide victory in summer 2013 marked the end of the 8-year rule of Ahmedinejad. His predecessor presided over a period widely considered to be among the most challenging for women’s rights activists in the history of the Islamic Republic. Sussan Tahmsebi, an Iranian-American activist and co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) reflects on expectations of, and concerns about, Rouhani after his first six months in office.