Category Archives: Women’s rights and gender equality

Iran blocks capital’s internet access as Amini protests grow

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Social media platforms have also been cut off in areas of Tehran and Kurdistan as videos of dissent go viral

Iran has shut off the internet in parts of Tehran and Kurdistan and blocked access to platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp in an attempt to curb a growing protest movement that has relied on social media to document dissent.

The protests, which were sparked on 16 September after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody, show no sign of subsiding. On Thursday, protesters torched police stations and vehicles in several cities.

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Iran sends police to end Mahsa Amini protests as reports say seven killed

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Internet blackouts and Instagram blocks also reported amid anger after 22-year-old woman’s death in custody

Iran has sent police on to the streets in a scramble to end protests that have spread to at least 15 cities, as rights groups and local media reported up to seven people had been killed in crackdowns.

There were reports of internet blackouts in parts of the country while Instagram accounts with Iranian IP addresses were also blocked in an apparent attempt to quell growing anger.

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Hungary tightens abortion access with listen to ‘foetal heartbeat’ rule

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Fears move will pave way for more restrictions in country where terminations are widely accepted

Hungarian women seeking an abortion will be obliged to “listen to the foetal heartbeat” before they can access the procedure, according to a new decree issued by the government of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

The new regulation is due to come into force on Thursday.

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Oman ‘failing to stop trafficking and abuse of migrant domestic workers’

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Report finds widespread instances of forced labour, with women denied access to passports and subjected to physical or sexual abuse

Oman is failing to protect migrant domestic workers who are victims of human trafficking, trapped in abusive households and subjected to physical and sexual violence with no access to justice or a safe route home, a report has found.

Do Bold, an organisation that works to assist and repatriate migrant workers trapped in the Gulf, interviewed 469 domestic workers from Sierra Leone working in Oman, for the report. It concluded that all but one of the women interviewed were victims of forced labour and human trafficking.

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Iranian authorities plan to use facial recognition to enforce new hijab law

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Government says it will use technology on public transport in crackdown on women’s dress

The Iranian government is planning to use facial recognition technology on public transport to identify women who are not complying with a strict new law on wearing the hijab, as the regime continues its increasingly punitive crackdown on women’s dress.

The secretary of Iran’s Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, announced in a recent interview that the government was planning to use surveillance technology against women in public places following a new decree signed by the country’s hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, on restricting women’s clothing.

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Kenya elections bring new wave of female leaders to the fore

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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.

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Arrests and TV confessions as Iran cracks down on women’s ‘improper’ clothing

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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.

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Sudan’s new community squad sparks fears of a return to ‘morality policing’

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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.

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Female protesters beaten by Taliban fighters during rare Kabul rally

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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.

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South African police arrest more than 120 after gang-rape of eight women

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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.

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Taliban policies risk de facto university ban for Afghan women, say officials

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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.

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Send us a man to do your job so we can sack you, Taliban tell female officials

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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.

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Sudan woman faces death by stoning for adultery in first case for a decade

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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.

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Sierra Leone backs bill to legalise abortion and end colonial-era law

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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.

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Julia Gillard says Covid-led shift to remote working could render some female employees ‘invisible’

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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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Tanzila Khan: disability rights campaigner tells young women ‘the world is yours’

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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.

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Chile government apologizes to woman for forced sterilization

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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.

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Male Afghan TV presenters mask up to support female colleagues after Taliban decree

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#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.

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Sisters allegedly murdered by husbands in Pakistan ‘honour’ killing

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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.

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US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

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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.

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