Sadai Banowan violated ‘laws and regulations of the Islamic emirate’, says local Taliban official
A female-run radio station in Afghanistan’s north-east has been shut down for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official said.
Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only female-run station and started 10 years ago. It has eight staff, six of them female.
Continue reading...Patchiness and exemptions of anti-vilification laws based on gender and sexuality leave queer community vulnerable, advocate says
LGBTQ+ advocates are calling for stronger legal protections following a series of attacks against Australia’s queer community.
Earlier this month neo-Nazis held a banner reading “destroy paedo freaks” at a rally in Melbourne attended by trans rights activists, and days later an LGBTQ+ group said they were attacked by a mob while protesting outside a Sydney church.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...Legislation aims to increase number of women in decision-making roles such as in company boardrooms
Spain’s government has approved a draft law that aims to bolster the presence of women in decision-making spheres by setting out quotas for women in politics, business and professional associations.
“This is useful policy that changes people’s lives,” the country’s finance minister, Nadia Calviño, said on Tuesday. “It’s clear that we’ve come a long way … but there is still a lot to do.”
Continue reading...Review shows only 10 of FTSE 350 companies still have all-male executive teams
The proportion of women in board roles in Britain’s biggest listed companies has risen above 40% for the first time, according to analysis that suggests only 10 of the UK’s 350 largest listed companies still have all-male executive teams.
The number of women on boards in the blue-chip FTSE 100 companies and the mid-sized FTSE 250 companies rose by 3% in 2022, according to the government-backed FTSE women leaders review, published on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Augustus Gloop now ‘enormous’ instead of ‘fat’, Mrs Twit no longer ‘ugly’ and Oompa Loompas are gender neutral
Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin.
Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.
Continue reading...NSW premier gives bill ‘in-principle’ support as independent Alex Greenwich hails a ‘good day for our state’
Growing up as a teenager in the suburbs of Sydney, Chris Csabs was led to believe he needed to be “fixed”.
“I was gay and had grown up steeped in an ideology that told me that God had not made me that way. That there was a negative cause to my homosexuality,” he said.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...SNP politicians fear quarrel weighing on leadership contest, while any compromise could break coalition with Greens
The future of transgender rights in Scotland remains in limbo, as SNP politicians warn that a leadership contest must not become dominated by ongoing rows on gender recognition reform.
Meanwhile, Scottish Greens sources suggest that any rowback on reform could lead to the collapse of the party’s power-sharing agreement with the SNP.
Continue reading...Politicians, campaigners and UN special rapporteur concerned by case of Isla Bryson, who offended before she had transitioned
Politicians, campaigners and a UN special rapporteur have all expressed grave concerns that a transgender woman found guilty of raping two women before transitioning is being remanded in a female prison.
Opponents of the Scottish government’s gender recognition reforms – which the UK government has blocked from going for royal assent because of “safety issues for women and children” – said that the case vindicated their concerns about lack of safeguards in the bill.
Continue reading...Nicola Sturgeon says her government will be ‘vigorously defending’ democracy as well as the bill passed in Scotland
I am sorry the comments are closed at the moment. There has been an update this morning that has created a glitch with the system, but the developers are trying to fix it as quickly as possible.
Labour has been anxious to avoid taking sides on the Scottish gender recognition reform bill. Although Keir Starmer has criticised aspects of the bill, and argued it might have an impact on UK equality laws, he has accused both the UK and Scottish governments of politicising the issues and implied that Labour would adopt a more consensual approach.
Continue reading...Information collected in 2021 is first that aims to show UK diversity, yet 7.5% of people did not fill in relevant questions
Census 2021 was the first to collect information on the sexual orientation of residents aged 16 years and over in England and Wales. Of those who completed the survey, 1.54% identified as gay or lesbian, and approximately 1.51% identified as bisexual or pansexual. A further 0.06% identified as asexual, and 0.03% as queer. This is almost certainly an underestimation of the actual national diversity of sexual orientation.
The item on sexuality was introduced for equity monitoring. The Office for National Statistics conducted extensive research, including the 2017 census test, to determine the exact wording and location of the item.
Continue reading...Anne Jakrajutatip, boss of JKN Global, recently made headlines by buying the firm behind the contest for $20m
Anne Jakrajutatip, 43, has a story unlike many of the world’s media moguls. Growing up in Bangkok, the child of shop owners, she felt that she was trapped in the wrong body. At school, she faced constant bullying and stigma. She tried to carefully manage her identity, showing what she believed to be her true self in front of friends, and acting as a good son in front of her parents. She experienced sexual harassment while still a child.
It was reading a local newspaper article about Oprah Winfrey, a survivor of child abuse, that led Jakrajutatip to want a career in the media and to become a TV chatshow host. A microphone seemed like a powerful weapon.
Continue reading...Neda Mohammad Nadeem says ban was necessary to prevent mixing of genders as rare protests break out
The minister of higher education in Afghanistan’s Taliban government has defended his decision to ban women from universities – a decree that triggered a global backlash and protests inside the country.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-run administration announced earlier this week it had closed universities to women partly due to female students not adhering to its interpretation of the Islamic dress code and interaction between students of different genders.
Continue reading...Judge at Cardiff hearing rejects families’ complaint, saying relationships curriculum does not advocate any one gender identity
A group of parents has lost a legal challenge against the teaching of children about gender identity and sex in primary schools across Wales.
Campaigners launched a judicial review in the high court against the Welsh government’s new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum, which they depicted as “dangerous” and “woke”.
Continue reading...Vote on law that would remove need for diagnosis of gender dysphoria to obtain gender recognition certificate pushed back after fraught debate
The final vote on the Scottish government’s long-awaited changes to simplify how someone can legally change gender has been delayed until Thursday after two days of fraught, chaotic and sometimes emotional debate among MSPs.
With discussion of more than 150 amendments continuing late into Wednesday night, the decision was taken by Holyrood business managers to re-schedule the crunch vote for Thursday afternoon rather than have the session run on into the early hours.
Continue reading...Crunch vote looms after debate prolonged by disruptions, attempted delays and uncertainty over possible amendments
Transgender 16- and 17-year-olds in Scotland are set to be able to apply to change the sex on their birth certificate for the first time as MSPs debated long into the night the Scottish government’s controversial gender recognition reforms.
The marathon session took place amid chaotic scenes at Holyrood, including disruption from the public galley, uncertainty over whether certain amendments opened the bill to legal challenge, and attempts to delay proceedings into the new year.
Continue reading...Higher education ministry issues indefinite order three months after thousands sat entrance exams
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women, the ministry of higher education said in a letter issued to all government and private universities.
“You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said the letter signed by the minister for higher education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem.
Continue reading...As the country goes to the polls, reforms introduced by hardline president Kais Saied have led to the exclusion of female candidates
Tunisians will vote on Saturday in an election that will lead to a weakened parliament “almost exclusively dominated by men”, as activists warn of a stark deterioration of women’s rights under an increasingly authoritarian president.
The controversial elections, boycotted by all the main parties, mark the final piece of the constitutional jigsaw President Kais Saied began assembling in July 2021, when he suspended the legislature in what critics called a power grab.
Continue reading...Author Nazir Afzal labelled the service ‘institutionally misogynist and racist’ and hoped the review would be a ‘turning point’
Incidents of misogyny, racism and bullying have been exposed by an independent report on the culture at the UK’s largest firefighting and rescue organisation.
Female firefighters have been groped, beaten and had their helmets filled with urine, a review of the London fire brigade has found.
Continue reading...As negotiations develop, some countries pushed to weaken the goal of keeping a global temperature increase to 1.5C
This liveblog is now closed
We’ve been reporting a lot on the lack of food at Cop (it’s been on our reporters’ minds for obvious reasons).
But my colleague Damian Carrington has found that vegan campaigners have capitalised on the burger shortage.
Continue reading...Interactive map shows spread of demonstrations over five weeks after woman’s death in custody
Iran has been gripped by protests since the death in custody on 16 September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin who had been arrested three days earlier for allegedly breaching the Islamic dress code for women. This interactive map shows how protests spread between 16 September and 21 October, fuelled by public outrage over a crackdown that has led to the deaths of other young women and girls. Now in their seventh week, the protests show no sign of ending.
Methodology
Continue reading...