Record win for women is a cause for celebration as acrimony over the presidency continues
More women won parliamentary seats in Kenya’s elections this month than ever before.
The National Gender and Equality Commission said Kenyans elected 30 female MPs, up from 23 in 2017, seven female governors, up from three in 2017, and three female senators, the same number as in 2017.
Continue reading...Protests follow appearance of ‘tortured’ writer on state television, while human rights group warn forced confessions on the rise as hijab laws hardened
There were protests and condemnation last week after an Iranian woman who was arrested for defying newly hardened hijab laws appeared on state television to give what observers claimed was a forced confession as a result of torture.
Sepideh Rashno, 28, was arrested in July soon after footage of her being harassed on a bus over “improper clothing”, was circulated online.
Continue reading...Fears the unit will enforce public order laws limiting women’s rights and freedoms amid crackdown since military coup
Human rights campaigners in Sudan fear the launch of a new police squad will herald the return of “morality policing” in the country.
The government has announced the creation of the community police unit to “reaffirm the relationships between people and the police” and ensure security.
Continue reading...Shots fired into air and rifle butts used to attack dozens of women protesting outside Afghan education ministry
Taliban fighters beat female protesters and fired into the air on Saturday as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days before the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists’ return to power.
Since seizing control on 15 August last year, the Taliban have rolled back the marginal gains made by women during two decades of US intervention in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Dozens of zama-zamas – illegal miners from other countries – now being held in crime crackdown following music video shoot attack
Dozens of men detained after the alleged gang-rape of eight women on a music video shoot in South Africa are expected back in court on Wednesday as police made more arrests of artisanal miners blamed by local people for widespread violence.
The arrests on Tuesday near Krugersdorp, a city north-west of Johannesburg, bring the total number of people detained since the attack to more than 120.
Continue reading...Secret schools formed as girls banned from classes languish with no accredited route to university
The Taliban’s ban on girls studying at high schools will become a de facto ban on university degrees for women if it stays in place, a Taliban spokesperson and university officials have said.
Girls will not have the documents needed to enrol in higher education, or the academic capacity to start university courses after nearly a year out of school.
Continue reading...As economy collapses, women from Afghanistan’s finance ministry say they have been asked to suggest male relatives to replace them
The Taliban have asked women working at Afghanistan’s finance ministry to send a male relative to do their job a year after female public-sector workers were barred from government work and told to stay at home.
Women who worked in government positions were sent home from their jobs shortly after the Taliban took power in August 2021, and have been paid heavily reduced salaries to do nothing.
Continue reading...Campaigners say sentence amounts to torture amid fears that country’s new regime is rolling back women’s rights
A woman in Sudan has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, the first known case in the country for almost a decade.
Maryam Alsyed Tiyrab, 20, was arrested by police in Sudan’s White Nile state last month.
Continue reading...Country hails ‘monumental step’ towards expanding reproductive rights at a time when the US has overturned them
Ministers in Sierra Leone have taken a major step towards decriminalising abortion and overturning the country’s colonial-era law, in a move hailed by campaigners and women’s rights activists.
President Julius Maada Bio said his cabinet had unanimously backed a bill on risk-free motherhood, which would expand access to abortion in a country where terminations are only permitted when a mother’s life is at risk.
Continue reading...Former PM joins panel discussion of pandemic’s effect on workplace gender equality and urges bosses not to overlook women
Former prime minister Julia Gillard says women risk becoming “invisible behind the screen” during the Covid-led transition to remote working and has urged bosses to ensure female employees working from home aren’t overlooked for promotion.
Australia’s first female prime minister on Wednesday also welcomed the record number of women in Anthony Albanese’s cabinet, calling it “very important” as the Labor ministry was sworn in.
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Continue reading...Winner of the inaugural Amal Clooney Women’s Empowerment award says she saw mainstream culture did not represent her, so she created her own space
Tanzila Khan does not like people feeling too sorry for themselves – or for her.
“I don’t like sob stories or tragedies,” said Khan, who is a disability and women’s rights campaigner in Pakistan. “I’m not saying they don’t exist – we can all face adversity – but I think we need a more positive approach to solving problems. I wanted to present people with disabilities in a more positive way.
Continue reading...Doctors performed procedure in 2002 without consent while Francisca was under anesthesia because she was HIV positive
The Chilean state has apologised to a woman who was forcibly sterilised by doctors because she was HIV positive.
The woman, known only as Francisca and then 20, was diagnosed with HIV in March 2002 while pregnant with her first child. But while she was under anaesthesia during a Caesarean section, doctors at a public hospital performed a surgical sterilisation on the grounds that it would be irresponsible for an HIV-positive woman to have more children. When Francisca woke up after the operation, she was informed by a nurse that she had been sterilised without her consent.
Continue reading...#FreeHerFace campaign gathers force as high-profile men rebel against crackdown on face coverings in Afghanistan
Male TV presenters in Afghanistan are wearing face masks on screen to show solidarity after the Taliban issued an order that all women on news channels must cover their faces.
In a protest dubbed #FreeHerFace on social media, men on Tolo News wore masks to mimic the effect of the face veil their female colleagues have been forced to wear after a Taliban crackdown.
Continue reading...Six men arrested after Pakistani-Spanish women tricked into travelling to Gujrat where they were shot
Two sisters with dual Pakistani and Spanish citizenship were allegedly killed by their husbands, uncle and brother in a so-called “honour” killing a day after they were tricked into travelling to Pakistan.
Aneesa Abbas, 24, and Arooj Abbas, 21, were strangled and shot dead on Friday after arriving in the eastern city of Gujrat with their mother, Azra Bibi.
Continue reading...If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups – particularly in the developing world, activists warn
The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a “catastrophe” for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.
The leak this month of the US supreme court’s draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been “egregiously wrong from the start”, stunned and enraged many in America.
Continue reading...Women say they fear going out in public despite Taliban vow to respect hard-won rights after 2021 takeover
Despite everything that has happened to her country since the Taliban seized power last August, 29-year old Nafisa still never believed there would come a day when she would be unable to feel the sun on her face as she walked the streets of Kabul.
Yet on Saturday, the Taliban’s sinisterly named ministry for the propagation of virtue ordered that Nafisa, along with millions of women across Afghanistan, should ideally not leave the house at all. If they do, they must be fully veiled and never show their faces in public.
Continue reading...Citing claims of violence and rape by police, lawyers and activists mount legal challenge to laws brought in under British rule
A case has been filed against the government of Sierra Leone to overturn the country’s loitering laws, which activists and lawyers claim are discriminatory, and used by police to extract bribes from people and sexually abuse women.
The laws are used to target poor and vulnerable people, say critics, and to subject them to criminal sanctions for potential conduct rather than actual harm caused.
Continue reading...The wide-ranging legislation, which comes amid a rise in such cases, is heralded as a victory ‘for all women’
Indonesia has passed a landmark bill that for the first time outlaws forced marriage and sexual harassment.
To tears and cheers from supporters in the gallery, on Tuesday the House of Representatives passed the long-awaited legislation that criminalises nine forms of sexual violence, including physical and verbal assault, harassment, forced sterilisation and exploitation.
Continue reading...Conditions drastically worse than in general camps, with some women forced to engage in ‘survival sex’, says World Vision
Women and children living in some of the hardest-to-reach camps in north-west Syria face chronic and high levels of violence and depression, with some women forced to engage in “survival sex”, a new report has revealed.
Children in so-called “widow camps” have been found to be severely neglected, abused and forced to work while mothers are at “breaking point” psychologically. More than 80% of women say they do not have adequate healthcare and 95% expressed feelings of hopelessness.
Continue reading...Unesco report finds that Covid school closures have made girls more vulnerable to gender-based violence
Student strikes have forced a string of school closures across Chile’s capital amid growing anger over sexist and violent behaviour only weeks after the country returned to in-person classes after two years of Covid-19 lockdowns.
“The demand is to stop the harassment,” said Javiera, 17, who was one of hundreds of girls to join protests outside the prestigious Santiago Lastarria school, after male students were found swapping intimate photos of their female classmates on Instagram. “We are demanding justice for victims, and for schools to stop protecting abusers.”
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