Category Archives: Women’s rights and gender equality

‘Impunity reigns’: six survivors of sexual violence speak out

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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.

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Glastonbury organiser says some men refuse to deal with her

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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.

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‘It’s stifling at home’: why free metro travel offers a lifeline for Delhi’s women

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City authorities say positive discrimination will make journeys safer and help low-income families

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.

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Move to end sexual harassment at work hailed as ‘milestone for women’s rights’

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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.

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Senior Islamic cleric issues fatwa against child marriage

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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.

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The mother challenging police and power to solve her daughter’s murder | Dan Collyns

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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.

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‘I’ll never have another child’: the mothers failed by Mexico’s hospitals

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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.

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Political violence against women tracked for first time as attacks soar

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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.

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Honduras abortion misery a ‘frightening preview’ of America’s future – study

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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.

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US abortion policy is ‘extremist hate’ and ‘torture’, says UN commissioner

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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.

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Not one single country set to achieve gender equality by 2030

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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”.

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Latin American rape survivors who were denied abortions turn to UN

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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.

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Sexism, slander, hatred: Sri Lanka’s culture of online abuse

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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.

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Who is trying to ban abortion in the US? – podcast

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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.

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‘What they did to me was so horrific’: brutal silencing of a Saudi feminist

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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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The world over, people in crisis suffer sexual violence – this scourge must end

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Tackling gender violence in crises requires changes of response and focus – as delegates in Oslo for a major summit will be told

Nomtaz Begum had lived all her life in Myanmar. Two years ago, men in uniform came to her village. They killed the men there, including her husband and three small children, boys aged two, five and 11.

She was raped by six of the soldiers, one after the other. They left after setting her house on fire. Badly burned, Begum and her daughter hid in the forest for four days before they were able to flee, making their way to a refugee camp.

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Pakistan authorities record a dozen cases of ‘honour’ killing in a fortnight

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Legislation passed following murder of Qandeel Baloch in 2016 proves ineffective as authorities fail to pursue cases

The killer was unrepentant.

“I killed my sister because she brought [a] bad name for the family,” he told neighbours in the Kachi district of Balochistan, Pakistan.

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How a rightwing group accessed the White House to spread its anti-abortion agenda

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The outsize influence of C-Fam in the top reaches of the Trump administration has helped turn the tide on the world stage on issues involving women’s reproductive rights

Last spring, Laurie Shestack Phipps, a diplomat at the US mission to the UN, received a set of talking points from the state department ahead of an international women’s conference, setting out clear red lines against mention of “sexual and reproductive health” care.

This had become the norm in the Trump administration, where the once uncontroversial phrase was seen as code for abortion. Use of the word “gender” was also strongly discouraged, as it was viewed as a stalking horse for LGBT rights.

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‘Like any other job’: Indian sex workers lobby for pensions and healthcare

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Five million sex workers vow to vote en bloc in national elections in effort to have rights acknowledged

Sex workers across India are lobbying candidates in the country’s general election to support their demands for better health and welfare services in return for votes.

“We wanted to see which party accepts sex workers as part of the community,” said Kusum (who goes by only one name), president of the All India Network of Sex Workers (AINSW), which is coordinating efforts. “Some express support for us behind closed doors, but never in public.”

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Mali gives top job to UN executive accused of ‘tolerating harassment’

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Michel Sidibé faced pressure to stand down following criticism of his handling of sexual assault allegations in his team

A senior UN official accused of “tolerating harassment and abuse of authority” has been appointed health minister in Mali.

Michel Sidibé faced pressure to stand down from his position as head of UNAids following criticism over his handling of a sexual assault allegation made against one of his deputies.

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