Marital rape not being prosecuted enough, campaigners say, in a country where women face growing harassment
Activists have warned of an “epidemic” of sexual harassment and violence against women in Indonesia, in the wake of two recent cases of horrific domestic abuse.
In one incident, a man in Jakarta reportedly slashed his wife’s throat with a machete after she refused to have sex with him, an act witnessed by their two children, aged seven and 14.
Continue reading...Ifrah Ahmed refuses to let the horrific female genital mutilation she suffered at the age of eight define her. “I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be a voice,” says the 32-year-old campaigner.
She is one of the first women to publicly speak out about female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia – a country where it is estimated that 98% of women have undergone the ritual – and now her journey from powerless victim to powerful role model has been dramatised in a film. A Girl from Mogadishu has just had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh film festival and will be released across the UK in cinemas later this year.
Continue reading...There’s been a $1bn boost in support in the last two years, but only tiny pots of money are trickling down to feminist groups
In the past two years alone, governments and international institutions have announced more than $1bn (£0.8bn) in new commitments to support gender equality globally.
These include: €500m (£440m) for the European Union and UN’s joint Spotlight Initiative, €120m by France for its feminist foreign policy and $114m by Norway to end sexual and gender-based violence in conflicts. Canada has announced CAD$490m (£290m) towards three programmes: women’s leadership ($150m), the LGBTQ2 Fund ($40m), and the Equality Fund ($300m). This fund was among the nearly $600m committed to women and girls in June at the Women Deliver conference.
Continue reading...Study identifies DRC, India and South Sudan among countries where women are at greatest risk of attack
Sexual violence is on the increase both inside and outside of wartime contexts and women remain the primary victims, warns new research.
In their report, researchers from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled) analysed data gathered from 400 recorded sexual violence events that occurred between January 2018 and June 2019.
Continue reading...Regional hearing seen as ‘last resort’ in battle to overturn measure that, exacerbated by Ebola, has affected thousands
Sierra Leone is being taken to court over its ban on pregnant girls attending school, which has denied thousands the right to finish their education.
Many girls were orphaned in the west African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak and, as they were left vulnerable and forced to fend for themselves, there was a spike in pregnancies. When schools reopened after the outbreak was contained, the government banned them from attending, to protect “innocent girls” from a bad influence.
Continue reading...From Colombia to Zimbabwe, members of a global network of rape survivors are demanding an end to the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war
All photographs by Raegan Hodge of the Dr Denis Mukwege Foundation
Carmen was raped by armed guerrilla forces in Colombia. Ekhlas was kidnapped by Isis in Iraq and forced into sexual slavery. Grace was taken by rebels from her classroom in Uganda, “given” to a soldier and impregnated twice before finally fleeing to safety.
Today, these women are all members of the Global Network of Victims and Survivors to End Wartime Rape, known as Sema, which translates to “speak out” in Swahili. The network represents roughly 2,000 rape survivors and 90 years’ worth of conflict across 21 countries in Africa, South America, the Middle East and Europe.
Continue reading...Emily Eavis says there are male execs in music industry who insist on speaking to her father
The Glastonbury festival organiser, Emily Eavis, has said some men in the music industry still refuse to deal with her despite her taking over responsibility from her father for overseeing the lineup.
Speaking days before the start of this year’s event, Eavis, 40, who has been booking acts at Glastonbury for half her life, said she was often the only woman in meetings with music moguls.
Continue reading...As a politics student, Sonakshi Dogra has given the bold new plan by the Delhi government to let all women ride free on the metro and buses a thorough going-over. “It’s ridiculous. Why favour women this way? What about male students and working men? Women can’t ask for gender equality and then support inequality on public transport,” she said firmly.
Dogra was about to enter Ashram metro station with three male friends, also students at the same university. They spend about 4,000 rupees (£45) each a month on transport.
Continue reading...International Labour Organization adopts treaty designed to establish global standards on workplace violence and harassment
Millions of women around the world, from domestic workers to CEOs, could soon be legally protected against sexual harassment and violence in their places of work.
After the adoption of a “milestone” treaty by the International Labour Organization, sparked by the #MeToo movement, a global set of standards has been established to prevent, identify and provide redress in cases of gender-based violence and harassment.
Continue reading...Deputy grand imam of al-Azhar calls for marriage based on mutual consent with minimum age set at 18
One of the world’s most prestigious centres of Islamic learning has issued a fatwa against child marriage, saying marriage should be based on the consent of both parties and “particularly the young woman”.
The deputy grand imam of al-Azhar, considered by some Muslims to be the highest authority of Islamic jurisprudence, hammered out the document with his team and young activists at the first African summit on child marriage and female genital mutilation, which took place in Senegal this week.
Continue reading...When Carolina’s body was found on wasteland in Ecuador’s capital, her mother, Amanda, did not believe she died of natural causes. Her investigation has now led to a conviction
Amanda* makes pastries to sell around the streets of Quito, she is not a detective. But the day after she buried her youngest daughter she “started to move” to track down those responsible.
Carolina Andrango had promised her mother she would not run away again. The 15-year-old had been through a difficult two years. She had fallen in with a bad crowd, her school grades had dropped and she had spent time in a drug rehabilitation clinic. She’d gone missing from home for days at a time. But on a shopping trip in August, it felt like happier times. Her mother bought her a new backpack and Carolina fooled about with her older sister, making a video on her phone.
Continue reading...In one of Mexico’s poorest states, women from minority backgrounds are increasingly at risk of abusive treatment during pregnancy and childbirth
Nancy Martínez was 17 when she went into labour. Though her age meant she was considered a high-risk pregnancy, she was left alone for several hours without monitoring or pain medication.
Nurses told Martínez to be quiet and put up with the pain, while doctors mocked her mother, Nancy Ceron Diaz, denying her information about her daughter’s condition.
Continue reading...Analysts to compile database to track spike in cases, with female politicians and campaigners increasingly targeted
Violence targeted against female politicians and activists will be tracked for the first time by a global database, amid indications of a recent rise in attacks.
Researchers reviewed thousands of events dating back to 1997, where political violence was targeted at women – ranging from wartime sexual violence to attacks on female civilians and crackdowns on female-led protests.
Continue reading...Reproductive rights pushback could leave American women facing same life-or-death choices as Hondurans, say researchers
One woman handcuffed by police after suffering a miscarriage, another forced to bear her rapist’s child. A doctor who risks imprisonment to end pregnancies that threaten the lives of patients. The reality of healthcare in Honduras provides a “frightening preview” of what could happen in America if the pushback on reproductive rights continues, Human Rights Watch has warned.
Researchers from the organisation spoke of the “enormous suffering” of women and girls in Honduras, where there is a total ban on abortion in all circumstances.
Continue reading...Trump administration’s ban on terminations is a crisis directed at women, warns Kate Gilmore
The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.
The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.
Continue reading...The first global index measuring efforts to end gender inequality finds countries are not doing enough to improve women’s lives
No country in the world is on track to achieve gender equality by 2030, according to the first index to measure progress against a set of internationally agreed targets.
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the index, launched on Monday, “should serve as a wake-up call to the world”.
Continue reading...Women from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala who suffered child rape take cases to UN human rights committee
Four women from Latin America whose lives were put at risk when they were not allowed abortions after being raped as girls are taking their cases to the UN human rights committee.
The women, from Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala, filed cases against their governments on Wednesday for failing to provide appropriate healthcare and denying them abortions, even when it was their legal right to have one.
Continue reading...From politicians to members of the LGBTQI community, social media in Sri Lanka is a hotbed of harassment and hostility
The threats began after Jegatheeswaram Jeyachandrika decided to contest local government elections.
Clutching a file of printouts, Meena, as she is known, points to a Facebook post in which she is pictured, circled in red, among a group of people.
Continue reading...Alabama is one of 15 states to recently pass an abortion ban. Although none of the bans are currently in effect, the aim is to place pressure on Roe v Wade, the court decision that enshrined a woman’s legal right to an abortion. The Guardian’s US health reporter, Jessica Glenza, discusses her meeting with Janet Porter, the religious extremist who inspired the anti-abortion laws. And: Serena Daniari on trans women finding their voices
Janet Porter believes life begins at conception and has spent the last 10 years lobbying on the fringes of the US abortion debate. Many on the left and right despise her, but in Donald Trump’s US, she has just had one of the biggest victories of her life. Porter successfully lobbied Ohio’s legislature to pass one of the strictest abortion bans in the world in April – the “heartbeat bill” would make the procedure illegal about six weeks into pregnancy. Alabama followed in May with an even more restrictive version, outlawing abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for those resulting from rape or incest. Six-week bans have been introduced in 15 states, although none are currently in effect.
Jessica Glenza, the Guardian’s US health reporter, tells Anushka Asthana about her meeting with Porter. With the recent appointment of two Trump-nominated supreme court justices and a growing number of anti-abortion federal judges, the ultimate aim of anti-abortion activists and lawmakers is to mount a challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 court decision that legalised abortion in the US.
Continue reading...To the outside world, Loujain al-Hathloul is regarded as one of the most influential women on the planet – but in her own country, she is seen as a threat who must be stopped
Loujain al-Hathloul always likes to ask questions, her brother Walid says. “Growing up, she always pointed out the hypocrisy around driving in Saudi Arabia, trying to understand why women were banned from driving. She kept questioning.”
But when Hathloul, now 29, was pulled over while driving in neighbouring United Arab Emirates last April before being deported back to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s rulers began the latest in a series of increasingly brutal efforts to silence her.
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