Category Archives: Women’s rights and gender equality

‘If I can get a plane into the sky, I can do anything’: female Afghan pilot refuses to be grounded

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Months after Mohadese Mirzaee became Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, the Taliban took Kabul. Now a refugee in Bulgaria, she is determined to fly again

Sitting alone in her small flat in Bulgaria, Mohadese Mirzaee contemplates the future. Three months ago, she left behind her family, and her dream job, in Afghanistan. At 23, Mirzaee was the country’s first female commercial airline pilot.

“Today, I don’t know where to go, but I’m not giving up. I’ve started applying for pilot jobs anywhere because I know I need to get back to flying,” she says by phone from the capital, Sofia.

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Poles march against abortion ban after pregnant woman’s death

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Protesters link woman’s death by septic shock to new restrictions on ending unviable pregnancies

“Her heart was beating too,” thousands of protesters across Poland chanted on Saturday during demonstrations sparked by the death of a pregnant 30-year-old woman in hospital. Her family say that the hospital staff refused her life-saving health care because they were afraid of breaking the country’s strict abortion law.

Demonstrators were joined by senior opposition politicians, including Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council.

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Kenya’s water crisis leaves villagers at risk of violence and disease – in pictures

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As rivers run dry, the desperate search for water has led to a rise in domestic abuse, conflict and illness

All photos by Cyril Zannettacci/Agence Vu for Action Against Hunger

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Bolivia: fate of 11-year-old girl raped by family member sparks abortion debate

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Religious groups seek to force girl to give birth as intervention of the Catholic church questioned

The fate of an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by a family member has unleashed a fierce debate between human rights activists and the Catholic church in Bolivia, as religious groups seek to force her to complete the pregnancy and give birth.

The girl was impregnated after being repeatedly raped and suffering other sexual abuse by the father of her stepfather in the town of Yapacaní, in Bolivia’s eastern Santa Cruz region.

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‘Gunmen killed a midwife who refused to leave a woman in labour’

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Zahra Mirzaei pioneered ‘groundbreaking’ maternity services in Kabul, but has been forced to flee. She says she won’t stop fighting for dignified care for Afghanistan’s women and girls

When Afghanistan’s first midwife-led birth centre opened in the impoverished district of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul this year it was a symbol of hope and defiance.

It began receiving expectant mothers in June, just over a year after a devastating attack by gunmen on the maternity wing at the local hospital left 24 people dead, including 16 mothers, a midwife and two young children.

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The Nigerian fish market where gods and commerce meet

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The all-women market appoints a ‘mother of wealth’ to pray for their good fortune – and in this recession-hit country the role is more important than ever

Folasade Ojikutu wears a traditional white lace dress for her work at the lagoon dock behind Oluwo market in Epe. The small town is home to one of the largest and most popular fish markets in Lagos – and almost all 300 traders are women. Many are from families who have sold fish here for generations, and Ojikutu, 47, is their “Iya Alaje”, meaning the mother or carrier of wealth.

As she strides past a small waterfront shrine, dozens of women fishing waist-deep in the water chant and hail her, calling out “Aje”- in part a reference to the Yoruba goddess of wealth. Every day, hundreds of people travel, sometimes for hours, to buy fish at Epe market, as it is commonly known, where the spiritual and commercial merge. And the mainly women traders look to Ojikutu– who acts as an intercessor, praying for good fortune, alongside managing affairs at the market.

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‘It still gives me nightmares’: the firefighters on the frontline as the world burns

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As global heating sees a surge in wildfires, we hear from those tackling the blazes, who face injury, death and trauma, often without proper equipment or support

In Greece, fires take up a lot of resources. There isn’t enough money to recruit the number of [firefighters] needed or to buy the necessary equipment. Volunteers plug the gaps.

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More than 30,000 Polish women sought illegal or foreign abortions since law change last year

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Tens of thousands have travelled to other European countries including England for legal terminations since near-total ban, campaigners say

At least 34,000 women in Poland are known to have sought abortions illegally or abroad since the country introduced a near total ban on terminations a year ago.

According to Abortion Without Borders (AWB), an organisation that helps women access safe abortion services, more than 1,000 Polish women have sought second-trimester abortions in foreign clinics since the country passed draconian new laws.

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‘The heaven of film-making’: how a Dalit orphan got to tell her own story

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A gift of a camera inspired Belmaya Nepali to rise above poverty and abuse to make documentaries

• I Am Belmaya review

Belmaya Nepali’s life changed for ever when, at 14, she was given a camera.

The British film-maker Sue Carpenter had come to Pokhara, a tourist city in central Nepal, to run a photography project with disadvantaged girls living in an institution. One of those girls was Belmaya.

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‘He lives freely, I live in fear’: the plight of India’s abandoned wives

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Activists highlight the poverty, stigma and abuse faced by women deserted by spouses living abroad

Kamala Reddy*, 33, a software engineer from Andhra Pradesh, married Vijay Kumar* in a traditional Hindu wedding in 2012. Kumar, who was working in the UK, was chosen by Reddy’s family. “But he didn’t take me to the UK after our marriage. He made excuses such as problems with the visa and so on,” says Reddy.

In 2016, Reddy became pregnant. Under pressure from the family, Kumar brought her to England. On arrival, she was shocked to discover Kumar’s secret. He had a British partner, two children and a stepchild. Neither Kumar’s nor Reddy’s families knew about the other family. Kumar threatened to leave Reddy if she told anyone.

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‘Evil customs’: why a Kashmiri village abandoned dowries

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Dowries, illegal since 1961, still cause 20 deaths a day in India. But Babawayil has had no divorces or violence against women since it banned them

Babawayil, in the foothills of the Zabarwan mountains by the Sind River, is a typical village in Indian-administered Kashmir. Groups of men and women sit on their lawns breaking open green husks of walnuts, freshly gathered from the giant trees shading the sleepy hamlet. Other villagers are busy in the paddy fields bringing in the harvest. Harud, the harvest season, is usually busy.

Most of the 150 households make their living from farming and weaving pashmina shawls.

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Day of the Girl is critical, but support is needed year-round, say campaigners

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From period poverty to blockchain, initiatives raising awareness of girls’ rights abound on 11 October, but long-term help is needed after Covid setbacks

International Day of the Girl is critical in highlighting girls’ rights globally, but action is urgently needed to reverse the damage of the pandemic, campaigners have said.

“Girls who were once hopeful about their futures say to us: ‘We’re not sure if we’re going to achieve our dreams now, if we’re ever going to go back to school’,” said Emily Wilson, chief executive of UK and Uganda-based organisation Irise International, which works to combat period poverty.

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Bolsonaro blocks free tampons and pads for disadvantaged women in Brazil

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Campaigners say president’s veto is ‘absurd and inhumane’ in country where period poverty keeps one in four girls out of school

President Jair Bolsonaro’s decision to block a plan to distribute free sanitary pads and tampons to disadvantaged girls and women has been met with outrage in Brazil, where period poverty is estimated to keep one in four girls out of school.

Bolsonaro vetoed part of a bill that would have given sanitary products at no charge to groups including homeless people, prisoners and teenage girls at state schools. It was expected to benefit 5.6 million women and was part of a bigger package of laws to promote menstrual health, which has been approved by legislators.

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Digital gender gap: men 50% more likely to be online in some countries – report

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Failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet hampering developing economies and fuelling gender inequality

A failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1tn (£730bn) over the past decade and could mean an additional loss of $500bn by 2025 if governments don’t take action, according to new research.

Last year, governments in 32 countries, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, lost an estimated $126bn in gross domestic product because women were unable to contribute to the digital economy.

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Najla Bouden: what next for Tunisia’s first female PM?

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Academic’s appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied’s pawn

Sara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it,” she said. “I told my colleagues: ‘He’s appointed a woman! He’s appointed a woman!’

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‘We are fearful’: Indigenous Mexicans dread new military buildup on ancestral land

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As the Tzeltal people resist huge infrastructure projects across Chiapas state, the new national guard barracks springing up are alarming many

Micaela* always stops to kiss a cross at the base of three hills, a lush swath of land in the indigenous ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas. Her ejido, meaning communal land, is shared among more than 5,000 Tzeltal inhabitants. But soon, they will also have to share it with Mexico’s national guard.

The national guard has built 165 barracks in Mexico since it was created only two years ago by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to replace the federal police, which he said was corrupt. Micaela’s community is leading the first lawsuit against one of 500 or so barracks planned across the country.

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WHO ‘should pay reparations to victims of sexual abuse by staff’

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Exclusive: UN agency must respond to the ‘real needs’ of the women and girls, says Julienne Lusenge, co-chair of the independent inquiry into the scandal

Survivors of sexual abuse by World Health Organization aid workers during the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak in 2018 should receive “substantive” reparations, the co-chair of an independent inquiry into the scandal has said.

Julienne Lusenge, a prominent Congolese human rights activist, said it was “essential” that the UN’s global health body drew up a workable plan for reparations to respond to the “real needs” of women and girls who became victims of abuse.

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Gail Omvedt: US sociologist who ‘lived by her principles’ among India’s poor

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The respected academic, who has died aged 80, was a leading anti-caste campaigner and fought tirelessly for women’s rights

At the village of Kasegaon, in India’s rural western region of Maharashtra, huge crowds turned up for the funeral in August of a US-born, white sociologist whom many local people saw as one of their own.

Most of the mourners were Dalits, who belong to the lowest caste in Indian society, previously deemed “untouchables”.

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Cop26: Women must be heard on climate, say rights groups

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Those worst hit by global heating are left out of talks, says feminist coalition calling for systemic change

Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the Cop26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.

The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.

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‘A poem is a powerful tool’: Somali women raise their voices in the nation of poets

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A childhood encounter with a hyena inspired Hawa Jama Abdi’s first verse. Now she is part of an arts project designed to encourage women storytellers - and unite all Somalis

When Hawa Jama Abdi was eight years old, she got lost in a forest and found herself in the path of a hyena. In her place, many would have run, some would have frozen – but Jama Abdi, the blind daughter of Somali pastoralists, kept her cool, and composed her first poem. The verse ran:

I lived in fear of you, day and night
It is a miracle world if I am standing in front of you, tonight
Since I am blind and cannot see anything
Come to my rescue and let your voice be my company

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