GirlsDoPorn was sued by women who claimed they were coerced into making videos without knowing footage would be online
A US judge has awarded $13m in damages to 22 women who were defrauded by the owners of GirlsDoPorn, a website specialising in “amateur”-style pornography.
Related: Group of US women sue 'amateur' porn producer over 'coercion and lies'
Continue reading...Palm plantations are fuelling a booming international trade but the people who live on its edges feel forgotten
The sign at the entrance to the palm oil plantation in Grand Bassa has faded thanks to Liberia’s relentless cycle of scorching sun and torrential rain. Even so, it’s possible to make out the phrase: “Your community is rich: Let’s have a fair share.”
Several miles farther on, past endless rows of carefully cultivated palm trees, it’s a slogan that bears little relation to reality. Gbenee Town is a small huddle of huts surrounded by a plantation more than six times the size of London’s Richmond Park.
Continue reading...Families tell how advances in healthcare and nutrition are helping to cut infant mortality rates
Continue reading...A farmer in eastern Uganda says he clings to the hope that the UN sustainable development goals could change things
Where I live, people are organised in clans. I belong to a clan where even 100 people, gathered together, can’t raise $100 (£75) to organise a funeral.
I come from a family that couldn’t afford to pay tuition of $10 a term when I was a student two decades ago. Many of my young relatives are out of school now, because their parents can’t afford a full academic term of $15.
Continue reading...From the first Ebola-free baby to advances in women’s rights, we take our pick of the breakthroughs
There was a glimmer of hope amid the rising death toll in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s largest Ebola outbreak when a baby called Sylvana tested negative for the virus.
Continue reading...All-female Genji Hip Hop collective use rhymes and art to fight cultural stereotypes and gender violence
Aminata Gaye picks up a grey scarf and stretches it into a T shape. She ducks under the fabric, wraps it around her neck and crisscrosses it over the crown of her head.
It is almost dusk outside, but in this windowless room there is no indication of time as Gaye gets dressed for a concert starting at 9pm. Her veil in position, the 27-year-old old is transformed into Mina la voilée (Mina the veiled one), her stage name as a rapper in Dakar, Senegal.
Continue reading...All they want is to do is play professionally, but for many young hopefuls from Africa their expensive journey to Turkey ends in exploitation
• Photographs by Italo Rondinella
For months, Yves Kibendo woke up every morning at 6am. He would leave his house in an ancient area of Istanbul, returning late in the evening, after working for 12 hours in a textile factory.
He was paid under the table, or sometimes not at all.
Continue reading...Water shortages and extreme weather contribute to tension in Middle East and India
Violence associated with water has surged in the past decade driven by attacks on civilian water systems in Syria’s civil war and increasing disputes over supplies in India, according to a comprehensive database of conflicts linked to the vital resource.
Recorded incidents of water-related violence have more than doubled in the past 10 years compared with previous decades, the statistics maintained by the California-based Pacific Institute thinktank show.
Continue reading...More than a million cases were reported in south-east Asia last year with poorer households most at risk
The global toll of dengue fever is becoming well known, with rising temperatures contributing to severe outbreaks that made 2019 the worst year on record for the disease.
In 1970 only nine countries faced severe dengue outbreaks. But the disease, which is spread by mosquitoes that can only survive in warm temperatures, is now seen in more than 100 countries. There are thought to be 390m infections each year
Continue reading...The fruit’s global surge in popularity has fuelled exports and attracted violent cartels to the trade in ‘green gold’
The 19 mutilated bodies, nine hanging semi-naked from a bridge in the Mexican city of Uruapan, were initially thought to be the result of a clash between rival drug gangs. But the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which claimed the murders in August, is believed to be fighting for more than drugs. It wants dominance over the local avocado trade.
Mexico is the world’s biggest producer of avocados. Exports of the “green gold” from the state of Michoacán, which produces most of Mexico’s avocados, were worth $2.4bn last year.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation in 2017 revealed Romanian women were being exploited on farms
An Italian court has sentenced a Romanian man to 20 years in prison for human trafficking after a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of women from Romania were being raped and used as forced labour on farms in Sicily.
In what investigators claim is Italy’s first conviction for labour trafficking of European citizens, Lucian Milea, 41, was convicted last week of running a trafficking ring that recruited dozens of women in Romania who were then forced into exploitation and prostitution on farms in Ragusa, Sicily.
Continue reading...Around the world people took to the streets in pro-democracy protests, while extreme weather, disease and violence wreaked havoc in some of the most vulnerable communities. But amid disaster, new grassroots leaders came to the fore, women fought to claim their rights and radical treatments for diseases were trialled
Continue reading...Menus in sign language and jobs for the hearing impaired are challenging discrimination against those with disabilities
It’s not just the bright yellow walls that make the Abey Khao cafe in Islamabad’s Mughal Market stand out. The menu is in sign language, as is the English alphabet painted on the walls, along with the signs for “yes”, “no”, and “thank you”. Customers are encouraged to place their orders using sign language.
The Abey Khao - which means “Hey Eat” – cafe is the believed to the only fast food cafe in Pakistan set up and run by deaf people.
Continue reading...Software for fighting cybercrime in Ghana and tools for speeding up cervical cancer diagnosis in Uganda are among innovations recognised by the judges of this year’s Africa prize
The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa prize, now in its sixth year, is the continent’s biggest award for engineering innovation. Sixteen African inventors from six countries – including, for the first time, Malawi – have been shortlisted to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionise sectors ranging from agriculture and banking to women’s health. The winner will be awarded £25,000 and the three runners-up will receive £10,000 each.
This year’s inventions include facial recognition software to prevent financial fraud, a low-cost digital microscope to speed up cervical cancer diagnosis, and two separate innovations made from water hyacinth plants. Four inventors spoke to the Guardian about their innovations and their plans to change Africa for the better.
Continue reading...Campaigners hail year of key global gatherings and events as vital opportunity to secure ‘bold, accountable commitments and action’
World leaders, civil society and the private sector are preparing to make 2020 the biggest year yet for the advancement of women’s rights.
Over the course of the year, thousands of people are expected to attend high-level UN events and forums in Mexico City and Paris to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action, a landmark agreement to end gender inequality.
Continue reading...From Bangladesh to Britain, blanket exposure to promotional material for unhealthy foods is encouraging children to eat badly, new research claims
Nepalese schoolgirl Prasiddhika Shrestha is holding up a video camera at her aunt’s house, filming her cousins as they devour crisps, corn puffs, soda and dalmoth, a traditional lentil-based snack.
“What is it that you like eating most?” she asks them. “Lay’s chips and Coke,” says Diwani, who drinks between one and two litres of soft drink every day. Rihana includes a pack of Kurkure corn puffs in her daily diet.
Continue reading...London will be the setting for a January exhibition and auction of art by people living in Moria camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos. The proceeds will go to the Hope Project, an initiative that promotes greater dignity for refugees and aims to transform the way they are seen
• Nine paintings will be exhibited in St James’s Church, Piccadilly, from 6 to 17 January 2020, while a charity auction will take place at Christie’s on 13 January
Continue reading...Teresa Xu says doctor told her to hurry up and get married before having children
At the end of last year, Teresa Xu visited a hospital in Beijing to discuss options for freezing her eggs. The doctor said she could not help Xu, a single woman, because it went against regulations. Then she gave the 31-year-old some sisterly advice: hurry up, get married and have children now.
Xu was shocked and disappointed. “I had no way to express my anger,” she said. She felt like she was being treated like a wayward child. “Like I was an intruder, delaying other couples … like my demands were too much. I felt powerless and depressed.”
Continue reading...The Bangladeshi government is making life hard for young people trying to document levels of hardship in the world’s largest refugee settlement
For Azimul Hassan, 19, life before he entered the world’s largest refugee settlement was always busy.
He would wake early to visit his private tutor before school, then work late every evening to finish his homework. On Fridays, he would play football with friends – he was a striker.
Continue reading...World Health Organization rues spike in violence that impeded efforts of health workers when outbreak was almost under control
The men who came to the village of Ntombi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in mid-December aimed to spare no one.
Militants with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), one of dozens of armed groups operating in DRC’s North Kivu, they hacked to death women and children, killing 22 people in a single incident in one of a series of attacks over the course of a weekend that left 43 dead in total.
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