Similar Topics of interest in PassBlue
GENDER EQUALITY
HUMAN TRAFFICING
WOMENS RIGHTS
WOMENS ISSUES
Amid a busy December, when the United Nations was focusing on important conferences on climate change and migration and year-end holidays loomed, a case of harassment that never got the traction it arguably deserved ended in a traditional UN way: it disappeared. On Dec. 14, the chairman of the International Civil Service Commission, which regulates … Read more
After the savage murder of Jamal Khashoggi, major organizations monitoring the freedom and safety of journalists worldwide are reporting, albeit coincidentally, that 2018 has been an exceptionally dangerous year everywhere. The deaths of journalists have risen sharply, to 53 from 47 in 2017, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced on Dec. 19. “The recent uptick … Read more
A decision by the United Nations Security Council to add sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence should have gone smoothly. The proposal, led by the Netherlands and Sweden, was meant to deter such violence in conflict zones and other hot spots. Weeks earlier, diplomats turned out in hordes to mark the 18th anniversary of a landmark … 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
Negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee, which concentrates on disarmament, caused a Twitter row late last week after wording on gender stirred up strong feelings between powerful nongovernmental organizations and Britain, surprising other countries as well. The committee’s informal consultations, as they are technically called, are currently focusing on updating an array … Read more
From 1975 to 1995, the United Nations sponsored four international conferences on women that produced wildly optimistic blueprints for concrete gains. Some people dismiss these forums and the programs for action that they generated as lacking strategies to carry them out. Others insist that the conferences raised awareness, shaped aspirations, fostered activism and, in countless … Read more
South Asia, a vast region stretching from Bangladesh to Afghanistan, has produced and exported respected medical professionals, research findings and innovations with universal reach. The poor record in domestic health care in almost every one of the seven countries in the region is a different story. The British medical journal The Lancet reopened discussion this … Read more
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Nadia Murad, a human-rights activist from Iraq’s Yazidi minority, and to Denis Mukwege, a Congolese physician, for their fight against sexual violence as a weapon of war. On the one-year anniversary of the reporting that sparked the #MeToo movement, the committee’s recognition of … Read more
Forty years is a long time to trek uphill, but Victoria Villanueva, the tireless leader of a campaign to raise the status of girls and women in Peru, remains undaunted. Now 83, she has been doing exactly this since 1978, the year she helped found Manuela Ramos, an organization that lobbies to reduce sexual violence … Read more
In the doldrums of a European summer, when many universities are mostly closed or short-staffed, the populist Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban sent a directive to higher-education institutions on Aug. 9 forbidding the teaching of gender studies. Hungarian academicians, faculties outside the country as well as civil society organizations reacted quickly, calling for … Read more
It has been four years since ISIS launched its genocidal assault on the Yazidi community in the Middle East. ISIS fighters have faced terrorism charges in Iraq and abroad, yet not a single ISIS fighter has been prosecuted for, much less convicted of, genocide. For the Yazidis, justice remains out of reach. In light of … Read more
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been placed on the United Nations Security Council agenda for several decades, in one form or another through various peacekeeping missions. The Council regularly meets on the status of the Congo, with the most recent session occurring on July 26, 2018, concentrating on progress toward scheduled presidential and legislative … Read more
In 2001, a pair of academics at Brigham Young University in Utah aimed to identify data linking the status of women to the security and behavior of countries. Seventeen years later, what began as a single article has evolved into a vital, comprehensive global database, offering insights into women’s lives in 176 countries. Meet the WomanStats … Read more
Among refugee advocates there has been a growing concern that recent agreements among regional governments and the United Nations on a framework for mitigating the Rohingya crisis could prompt at least some of the million-plus people who have fled the deadly military pogrom in Myanmar to consider risking a return to try to rebuild their … Read more
Historically neglected, gender-based violence is now becoming broadly recognized as a legitimate and urgent agenda item among the United Nations member nations, notably in the UN’s most powerful forum, the Security Council. But the future of the agenda is uncertain, as priorities remain unclear and inadequate methods for preventing sexual violence against women keep us … Read more
Barbie Latza Nadeau is an American journalist based in Rome, covering the large refugee migrations from the Middle East and Africa since 2011, often with an emphasis on women. She has recently written a book, “Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast,” zeroing in on a huge increase in the number … Read more
For almost three centuries, through street protests, court battles and a civil war, the United States has sporadically but steadily advanced and expanded human-rights protections and commitments in domestic and foreign policies. Now Donald Trump and the most conservative, ideologically driven officials on his team want to turn back this record in fundamental ways, as … Read more
Michelle Bachelet ended her second term as president of Chile on March 11, 2018. Her first term, from 2006 to 2010, was marked by an ambitious social and economic agenda advancing women’s rights and better health care. Her cabinet of ministers, for example, was composed of an equal number of men and women, as she … Read more
In scriptures, poetry, constitutions and leaders’ pledges to protect all members of the state, women are often listed with children or others rendered “vulnerable” by circumstance. The woman citizen is imagined as less adult. Is it possible that vocabularies that consider women as objects make a quiet argument that the assault on our person is … Read more
Canada’s national health system, the envy of many people in other countries, including in the United States, is being more scrutinized from Canadians as reports reveal serious health-service gaps in the territory of Nunavut, a self-governing province populated by mostly Inuit people. Critical reports of deprivation and neglect emerging from Nunavut paint a picture of … Read more
