Johanna Higgs 
ISHKASHIM, Afghanistan — I entered the country from the northeast, from Tajikistan, where I had been traveling for a month, researching the lives of women, as I have been doing across the world for years. From the small town of Khorog in Tajikistan, I hired a taxi to drive me to the border crossing. As … Read more
KAMPOT, Cambodia — Chan Kanha is the deputy mayor for the Cambodian People’s Party in this small port town, which sits along Cambodia’s southern coast and still retains much of its French colonial architecture. The Cambodian People’s Party, or CCP, is led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has run the country for the last … Read more
ZAHEDAN, Iran — “They give all of the rights to men,” said Neda, a young woman living in Zahedan, a border city near Afghanistan and Pakistan, who did not want to reveal her last name. “You can never make your own decisions. Many women need permission from a man in their family to leave the … Read more
LIOUSHUI, China — Known as the Kingdom of Women, the Mosuo are a small ethnic minority group living in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, predominantly around Lugu Lake. The Mosuo have become somewhat famous for their matriarchal society, where the family name and other legalities are passed to the next generation through the women, and the … Read more
SUKHUMI, Abkhazia — Here in the Caucasus region, hugging the Black Sea, this is what the capital of the small breakaway territory of Abkhazia looks like, more than 20 years after severing from Georgia: a city in tatters with abandoned buildings lining the streets and bullet holes still pockmarking the facades. The territory’s quarter of … Read more
NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — “The officials here in Mauritania will tell you the opposite of what victims will tell you, which is that there is no slavery in Mauritania,” said Brahim Bilal Ramdhane, who lives in this West African capital and was enslaved during his childhood. “They will just tell you that people who say this … Read more
BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo — On the outskirts of the capital here, it is dark and loud in a makeshift bar as Congolese music blares across the room. When we ask two patrons if children are there, they point to one girl and suggest she could be a prostitute. Young and slim, she might indeed … Read more
ERBIL, Iraq — Despite the war crimes being committed against women and girls in northern Iraq since the extremist group ISIS invaded two years ago, rejection of entrenched violence and discrimination against females may be taking root among pockets of the autonomous Kurdish region here. Yet in many ways, life for women and girls remains … Read more
BUENOS AIRES — Like many countries, Argentina is considered a source, transit and destination nation for the trafficking of men, women and girls, according to the United States State Department. Female victims and children are brought to the country from across South America — Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru — as well as from the … Read more
BUENAVENTURA, Colombia — Described as Colombia’s horror capital, this costal city is a denizen of drug trafficking, gang violence and turf wars primarily between right-wing paramilitary networks and leftist rebels. Soldiers patrol the streets as part of the government’s attempt to crack down on the dangers, while abductions and sexual violence remain rampant as girls … Read more
MEDELLIN, Colombia — “There is conflict in every single country in the world,” a 16-year-old former combatant from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, rebel group said at a rehabilitation center for demobilized child soldiers here in Colombia’s third-largest city. Yet when it was pointed out that there was no conflict in Australia … Read more
TUNIS — Tunisia has possessed the rare reputation of being progressive in gender equality in the Middle East-North African region. Yet with the rise of an Islamist political party in Tunisia after its relatively placid revolution in 2011, the question is, how have women fared in the post-Arab spring landscape? In Tunis, the cosmopolitan capital, … Read more
NEAR TINDOUF, Algeria — Our goal was to understand the dynamics of women who live in the refugee camps here in the Sahara Desert, where tens of thousands of Sahrawi people reside in tents and mud-brick buildings, having fled their homeland up to decades ago. The camps originated in 1975-1976, when the Sahrawis first escaped … Read more
