• violence against women

    TAKE A LOOK

    Hungary Forbids Gender Studies, Enraging Academics

    by  • August 14, 2018 • Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Women • 1 Comment

    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...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    Deconstructing Power: The Global Prevalence of Gender Violence

    by  • May 19, 2018 • Africa, Gender-Based Violence, Women • 

    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...

    Read more →

    Thank You, UN, for Protecting Victims of Slavery and Other Cruel Practices

    by  • April 19, 2018 • Africa, Asia, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, International Justice • 

    While slavery and inhumane practices have still not been eradicated, the United Nations has done much to expose them and to help stamp them out. Its efforts continue. Early after its establishment, the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights carried out a study on slavery. Its findings were riveting, and it made several policy recommendations...

    Read more →

    For Victims of Sexual Violence in War, Stigma Can Kill

    by  • April 16, 2018 • Gender-Based Violence, International Justice, Myanmar, Peace and Security, Refugees • 1 Comment

    In a year in which swaths of territory were liberated in Iraq and Syria from the grip of ISIS, enabling the release of women and girls and others from the extremists, the United Nations’ annual report on conflict-related sexual violence highlights the stigma that the victims encounter — from physical pain to profound depression...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    A Taste of Running for Political Office Has Left This UN Retiree Ready for More

    by  • April 10, 2018 • Africa, UN Careers, Women • 

    ORANGE, Conn. — Margaret Novicki is a 22-year veteran of the United Nations, having served in various regions in Africa and as the director of strategic communications at UN headquarters in New York. Upon her retirement in 2017 at age 62 from an eventful, complicated career at the UN, Novicki, an American, ran as...

    Read more →
    WORLDVIEWS

    How to Use UN Sanctions More Strategically to Stop Rape in War

    by  • March 26, 2018 • Security Council, WORLDVIEWS • 1 Comment

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The weaponization of sexual violence by Syrian government forces, as part of a campaign to punish opposition communities, was stunningly documented in a recent report by investigators for the United Nations. Women and girls have been subjected to rape, gang rape and genital mutilation, perpetrated by government forces and associated militias....

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    US Congress Strikes Back at Trump’s Goals to Curtail Family Planning

    by  • March 25, 2018 • Gender-Based Violence, LGBT, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, Women • 

    In a rare act of legislative sabotage, the Trump administration’s plan to starve international family planning of funds has been killed for now as committees in both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate slipped hundreds of millions of dollars to support reproductive health programs into a 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion US budget...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    #MeToo Must Include All Women: A Chat With UN Women’s Director

    by  • November 24, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Women • 1 Comment

    November 25 marks the annual International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which encompasses 16 days of activism through Dec. 10, with this year’s theme being “leave no one behind.” The annual commemoration couldn’t be better timed this year, coinciding with the #MeToo movement reverberating across the United States — and far...

    Read more →
    GEOPOLITICS

    Why Do Jihadists Exit Violent Extremism? The Field of Study Grows

    by  • November 17, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Geopolitics, Middle East • 

    The study of violent extremism and what attracts people to become jihadists has been expanding rapidly in social sciences, but what is little known is why people avoid or leave a violent movement. It is a field that is slowly growing among academics, think tanks and United Nations officials, enabling them to form policies...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    A New Index Rates the Well-Being of Women in 153 Nations and US Ranks 22d

    by  • October 31, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Secretary-General, US Foreign Relations, Women • 

    A new women, peace and security index was unveiled at the United Nations recently. At its core, the WPS index, as it is known, provides evidence for what advocates have been saying all along: that the active and equal participation of women in all aspects of society is critical for peace and security, especially...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    Afghan Women Write New Narratives About Themselves, With Courage

    by  • October 24, 2017 • Asia, Gender-Based Violence, Journalists, Women • 

    Throughout the world, Afghan women are often portrayed as victims by the media and other institutions, needing foreign rescue or summoning deep pity for their oppression. Women’s literacy rate is less than half that of men’s in the country, and it remains one of the worst places in the world for a girl to...

    Read more →
    TAKE A LOOK

    A Guide to Trump’s Global Edicts on Women’s Reproductive Health

    by  • October 16, 2017 • Development, Health and Population, Take a Look • 

    The Trump administration, which announced early this year that it would curtail American-funded women’s health services around the world that may be involved in any way in abortion, has turned its attention to curbing family planning in the United States. Rules have been issued with immediate effect that American women can no longer obtain...

    Read more →
    UNGA72

    Snubbing Trump, Europe Stands Firm on the Iran Deal

    by  • September 20, 2017 • Disarmament, Gender-Based Violence, Nuclear Disarmament, Security Council, Terrorism, UNGA72 • 

    The fight over preserving the Iranian nuclear deal took a firmer direction at the United Nations on Sept. 20. After Donald Trump, the United States president, proclaimed to the General Assembly the day before that the deal was “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,” heads...

    Read more →
    WORLDVIEWS

    One Major Way to End the Global Rape Epidemic: Through Laws

    by  • May 25, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, WORLDVIEWS • 

    Recently in northern India, a five-months pregnant 10-year-old girl was forced to go to court to request an abortion after conceiving as a result of being repeatedly raped by her stepfather. Indian law does not allow terminating a pregnancy after 20 weeks unless doctors certify that the woman’s life or health is in danger;...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    Rape by Terrorists: A UN Report Documents Sexual Attacks in War

    by  • May 2, 2017 • Gender-Based Violence, Human Trafficking, Libya, Middle East, Peace and Security, Women • 1 Comment

    Moving away from strictly categorizing rape and other sexual abuse against women as a weapon of war, a new report from the United Nations addresses the increasing use of rape as a weapon of terrorism. The report also documents how mass migration has led to further sexual violence against women through human trafficking by...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    It Still Exists: Slavery Drags On in Mauritania Despite Being Illegal

    by  • February 15, 2017 • Africa, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Women • 

    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...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: INDIA

    Amid Kashmiri Violence, a Rape-Murder Case of Two Women Goes Unsolved

    by  • November 29, 2016 • Gender-Based Violence, India • 

    SHOPIAN, Kashmir — A strange quiet had fallen over the Eidgah, a sacred space and martyrs’ graveyard. The sadness was overwhelming, but there was also an underlying restlessness. A special prayer meeting had been organized by Shakeel Ahmad Ahanger and hundreds from this small town had gathered to remember two of its daughters, one...

    Read more →
    TOPIC: WOMEN

    No Prosecutions for Female Genital Mutilation in Britain, So What Is the Problem?

    by  • October 3, 2016 • Gender-Based Violence, Women • 1 Comment

    NOTTINGHAM, England — Female genital mutilation has been illegal in England and Wales since 1985. Scotland has similar but separate legislation. Much more comprehensive laws forbidding the practice were introduced in 2003 and again in 2015, creating additional safeguards and stringent punishments for those practicing FGM, as it is known. Yet no one in...

    Read more →

    In Iraqi Kurdistan, It’s a Life of Harsh Contrasts for Women and Girls

    by  • July 9, 2016 • Gender-Based Violence, Middle East, Terrorism, Women • 

    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...

    Read more →

    Fleeing Violence, Syrian Women Try to Cope in Turkey and Lebanon

    by  • April 6, 2016 • Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Middle East, Refugees, Syria, Women • 1 Comment

    GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Amima and Fatima Jebari are Syrian sisters who fled last year to the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, after the Free Syrian Army entered their village in the north, they said, and violence ensued between the rebel group and the government forces of Bashar al-Assad in the...

    Read more →