Category Archives: Women

Pregnant women report medical neglect in ICE detention, rights groups say

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Women report miscarriages, delayed care, being shackled and being held in solitary confinement, letter says

Pregnant women have reported bleeding, miscarriages, being shackled and other instances of medical neglect while in US immigration custody, according to a group of prominent civil rights organizations.

The groups – which include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its Louisiana chapter, the National Immigration Project, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, Sanctuary of the South and Sanctuary Now Abolition Project – sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Senate committees on Wednesday, describing interviews with more than a dozen women.

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Giorgia Meloni condemns Italian union leader for ‘Trump courtesan’ remark

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Prime minister says CGIL head is ‘clouded by resentment’ and accuses the left of hypocrisy towards women

Giorgia Meloni has condemned the boss of Italy’s biggest trade union after he referred to the prime minister as the “courtesan” of Donald Trump.

Maurizio Landini, the leader of CGIL, which organised several pro-Palestinian protests before the Gaza ceasefire deal, made the remarks on TV on Tuesday, the day after world leaders, including Meloni, met in Egypt for a Middle East peace summit.

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‘I need to do everything now’: the Ukrainian combat medic-turned playwright

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Since Alina Sarnatska’s first play premiered a year ago, she has documented wartime Ukraine with unflinching frankness

Eighteen months ago, Alina Sarnatska was serving as a combat medic on Ukraine’s frontline – including in the hellish battle for Bakhmut – and had barely been to the theatre.

Six months later, she was preparing to watch the premiere of her first play in Kyiv. Now Sarnatska, 38, has several dramas under her belt and is emerging as one of Ukraine’s most powerful voices in the theatre.

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Xi directs quashing of Chinese feminists even as he praises advances at women’s conference

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Chinese president is behind patriarchal turn in politics with activists silenced for ‘promoting gender antagonism’

Addressing dignitaries gathered in Beijing on Monday, Xi Jinping praised the “historic achievements” of women’s rights in China. In the past 30 years, the Chinese president said, maternal mortality rates had dropped by nearly 80%, and women were now participating in the project of national governance with “unprecedented confidence and vigour”.

Xi was speaking at the global women’s summit, an event on Monday and Tuesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the historic UN’s world conference on women, which took place in Beijing. It was there in 1995 that Hillary Clinton, the then US first lady, delivered her “women’s rights are human rights” speech, lines now often quoted by people in China advocating for women’s rights.

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Anti-abortion groups furious as FDA approves generic abortion pill

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Abortion rights supporters hail win for evidence-backed medicine as Evita Solutions’ generic version of mifepristone given approval

In a move that has left anti-abortion advocates reeling, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly approved a request to manufacture a new abortion pill earlier this week.

Thanks to the approval, a company called Evita Solutions will be able to manufacture its generic version of mifepristone, one of two drugs typically used in most US medication abortions. A generic version of mifepristone, which was first approved as a brand-name drug in 2000, is already available on the market.

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Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe

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Study finds prosecutors targeting low-income women mainly in US south – and figure likely to be an undercount

In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.

Of the 412 cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice, the vast majority took place in the US south, targeted low-income women and involved allegations that women broke laws against child abuse, endangerment or neglect, according to the research, which was compiled by the reproductive justice group. About 300 prosecutions took place in Alabama and Oklahoma. In 16 cases, law enforcement charged women with homicide.

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Social media and weight loss drugs drive UK rise in facelifts in men and people in their 40s

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Number of procedures on men up by 26% as experts say cosmetic surgery has become normalised despite risks

Growing numbers of men and younger people are getting facelifts, a trend driven by social media, advances in surgical techniques and the rise of weight loss drugs.

Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) show facelifts are on the rise in the UK. In 2024 there were 1,882 procedures, up 8% from the previous year. Women accounted for the majority, with numbers rising by 7% to 1,742. But the steepest increase came from men: procedures grew by 26%, from 111 in 2023 to 140 in 2024.

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‘Loud and proud’: UK summit kicks off new conversation for working dads

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Organisers of event urge fathers to push for more equal parental rights in face of Britain’s current poor offering

“Who’s in your team?” asked Elliott Rae, pumping up the crowd in central London at what he billed as the world’s first Working Dads’ summit. “Who’s your goalkeeper, your defender, your striker? Do you have a full 11? Do you have subs on the bench?.”

Football analogies are generally rare at events about parenting, particularly those that seek to tackle gender equality. But then, so are men. At the Working Dads’ summit – almost certainly the first in the UK – both were in plentiful supply, as fathers were urged to “create a new idea of masculinity”.

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Trump rails against Tylenol but autism claims not supported by science

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President’s announcement latest move in campaign that seeks to valorize the ‘natural’ – often at women’s expense

Donald Trump has, allegedly, found “the answer to autism”: Tylenol.

On Monday, Trump announced that pregnant women should dramatically limit their use of acetaminophen, known by the brand name Tylenol or internationally as paracetamol, because, he claimed, it raises the risk of autism.

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Systemic racism affects maternity care for black women in England, say MPs

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Commons committee finds women’s concerns not taken seriously due to bias, stereotyping and racist assumptions

Black women in England are still facing poorer outcomes in their maternity care due to systemic racism, alongside failures in leadership and data collection, according to a group of MPs.

Across the UK, black women are more than twice as likely to die in childbirth compared with their white counterparts, while babies born to black mothers are at an increased risk of stillbirth.

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More than half of UK births now involve medical intervention, audit finds

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Caesareans drive rise in assisted deliveries as experts warn of complex pregnancies linked to age, obesity and other conditions

More than half of women having a baby in Britain now do so with the help of medical intervention, an audit of NHS maternity care has revealed.

Of the 592,594 births that took place in 2023, 50.6% involved either a caesarean section or the use of instruments such as forceps or a ventouse suction cup.

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Ministers urged to digitise adoption records to help reunite families

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As ITV’s Long Lost Family airs, campaigners say retaining archives is crucial for those separated by forced adoptions at unmarried mothers’ homes

Ministers have been urged to digitise records essential to reuniting families separated by the UK’s unmarried mothers’ home scandal by campaigners who fear they could be lost in Angela Rayner’s local government reorganisation project.

Hundreds of thousands of British women were coerced to give up babies at church-linked homes, which worked alongside statutory agencies, between the 1940s and 1980s.

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Texas bill allowing residents to sue out-of-state abortion pill providers reaches governor

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If Greg Abbott signs, state would become first to try to crack down on the most common abortion method

A measure that would allow Texas residents to sue out-of-state abortion pill providers advanced to the desk of the governor, Greg Abbott, on Wednesday, setting up the state to be the first to try to crack down on the most common abortion method.

Supporters say it’s a key tool to enforce the state’s abortion ban, protecting women and fetuses.

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UK mothers earn £302 a week less than fathers, analysis shows

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ONS data shows they are working for free from 1 September, almost three months earlier than Equal Pay Day for all women

Women with children earn £302 less every week than men with children: one-third less per week and almost 20% less per hour, according to analysis based on ONS data.

This means that Mums’ Equal Pay Day falls on 1 September this year, almost three months earlier than Equal Pay Day for all women. From this date, mothers are working for free for the rest of the year compared with fathers.

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Men celebrate fourth anniversary of Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan

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Thousands gather for Kabul ‘flower showers’ while women stage protests

Thousands of men gathered across Kabul on Friday to watch flowers being scattered from helicopters to mark the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power – a celebration that women were barred from attending.

Three of the six “flower shower” locations were already off-limits to women, who have been prohibited from entering parks and recreational areas since November 2022.

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Abortion drug could help reduce risk of breast cancer, group of medics says

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Stigma around mifepristone is stopping studies, experts in reproductive health claim in Lancet opinion piece

A drug used in medical abortions could help prevent women at high risk of breast cancer from developing the disease, according to an international group of doctors and scientists.

However, “stigma” around mifepristone is stopping pharmaceutical companies from investigating its potential as a new treatment doctors could offer to reduce the risk of breast cancer, they say.

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Thursday briefing: ​How the colonial legacy has created a toxic beauty industry

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In today’s newsletter: Doctors are sounding the alarm over a surge in cancers and irreversible skin damage linked to bleaching creams, as colourism continues to shape beauty ideals from Africa to Asia

Good morning. The slogan “black is beautiful” rang out from civil rights marches in the US and UK during the 1960s and echoed through liberation struggles across the global south. It became a rallying cry against racist beauty standards that had long cast Black skin, facial features and hair as undesirable.

These movements urged pride in what had been denigrated for centuries, and their message was not limited to people of African or Caribbean heritage. Calls to embrace natural beauty resonated across Asia and much of the global south, directly challenging the colonial belief that lighter skin conferred greater worth.

Ukraine | Donald Trump told European leaders on Wednesday he would be seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine at his summit with Vladimir Putin on Friday and gave reassurances that he would not make any territorial concessions without Kyiv’s full involvement.

UK news | David Lammy has referred himself to the environment watchdog after going fishing with JD Vance without the required licence during the US vice-president’s trip to the UK.

Immigration | At least 20 people have died after a boat capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, a United Nations agency and local media reported on Wednesday.

UK politics | Keir Starmer is to formally revive Northern Powerhouse Rail this autumn with an announcement expected before the Labour conference.

Palestine | The United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied territories has warned that moves to recognise a Palestinian state should not distract member states from stopping mass death and starvation in Gaza.

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US destruction of contraceptives denies 1.4m African women and girls lifesaving care, NGO says

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Incineration of $9.7m of contraceptives to lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions, IPPF says

A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m (£7.3m) of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.

More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.

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Denmark to reportedly remove ‘ugly and pornographic’ mermaid statue

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Danish agency for palaces and culture requests removal of 14-tonne sculpture from Dragør Fort in Copenhagen

A debate has erupted in Denmark over the fate of a mermaid statue that is to be removed from public view after being decried as “ugly and pornographic” and “a man’s hot dream of what a woman should look like”.

The Danish agency for palaces and culture is reportedly removing the 4x6 metre Den Store Havfrue (the Big Mermaid) from Dragør Fort, part of Copenhagen’s former sea fortifications, because it does not align with the cultural heritage of the 1910 landmark.

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Sall Grover begins federal court appeal against Roxanne Tickle’s gender discrimination case win

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Lawyers for founder of Giggle for Girls app says ‘special measure’ under Sex Discrimination Act allows for ‘women-only safe space’

Giggle for Girls and Sall Grover have begun their appeal to overturn a landmark court decision that found the women-only social media app and its CEO had unlawfully discriminated against Roxanne Tickle, a transgender woman.

On Monday, the full court of the federal court heard that Grover’s team believes the app – designed as a “women-only safe space” – constituted a “special measure” under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA), which allows discrimination with the aim of redressing historical disadvantage between men and women.

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