Normally, the numbers of males and females in a human population are about the same across all such populations. However, pregnancy interventions by couples and unhealthy lifestyles among young men have produced gender imbalances, giving rise to “missing girls” in some populations and “disappearing men” in others. The coronavirus pandemic will have lasting impacts on … Read more
Afghan women’s inclusion in the current peace negotiations with the Taliban and the United States has become an international cause célèbre. But calls for participation of Afghan women without methodical, sustained and substantive engagement in a peace settlement has the potential to harm them, not help them. The international community should ensure that Afghan women are … Read more
This year was intended to be a celebratory time for women: the 25th anniversary of the momentous Beijing conference on women’s rights and how to advance them. It isn’t working out that way, however, as a global health crisis and disagreements among advocates for women rewrite the script. The 2020 session of the Commission on … Read more
Nearly 700 people, many of them young adults and students, flocked to the United Nations recently to attend an all-day gathering on “War No More.” Who were they eager to see and hear? The global feminist icon Gloria Steinem and Leymah Gbowee, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who led her fellow countrywomen to help end … Read more
With International Women’s Day, March 8, on the horizon, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres blasted the intractable power of patriarchy, the cause of overwhelming gender injustice and an abuse of historical proportions, in his view. “Just as slavery and colonialism were a stain on previous centuries, women’s inequality should shame us all in the twenty-first,” … Read more
From the start, the diplomats leading the negotiations on the new political declaration for the United Nations’ women’s rights conference in March wanted to keep it short and sweet. That meant five pages maximum, one diplomat told PassBlue before the discussions began, inevitably frustrating diplomats who had hoped to produce a generous endorsement of women’s … Read more
When Reporters Without Borders recently tallied the murders of journalists across the globe in 2019, the organization found that the confirmed death toll, 49, was the lowest since 2003. That was the good news. The rest of the findings from this and other media groups are less reassuring. Journalists are being targeted virtually everywhere, not only … Read more
In the gallery of authoritarian governments undercutting the rights of women and threatening democracy around the world, five nations stand out for a special reason. Donald Trump has made the leaders of Brazil, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey his friends and accomplices. In all of these countries, according to mounting evidence in numerous studies, … Read more
This year will be an urgent moment for the United Nations and its 193 member countries to renew their commitment ensuring women’s equality in all walks of life. Twenty-five years have passed since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was ratified at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. That document was designed … Read more
Last month, the world was struck by an unusual image — that of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi — standing in court to defend and deny genocide. What was striking was not only what she and Myanmar’s legal team said but also what wasn’t said: the total failure of Myanmar to … Read more
As the countdown to this year’s main events celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women has begun, UN Women has announced six themes to anchor the two Generation Equality forums to be held in May and in July. While many women’s groups applaud the broad themes, some have serious qualms about one topic … Read more
In Haiti, a young woman I’ll call Marie became involved with a United Nations peacekeeper from Brazil when she was 14 years old. She became pregnant. He was sent back to Brazil; she was ostracized by her family. In 2017, when our research team met with Marie, she said that she and her son, by … Read more
In health care, political participation, economic advancement, personal safety and justice, women across the world may be advancing on some fronts in various places. At the start of a new decade, however, the realities on a global scale are far from meeting promises made in past years. On March 9, when delegations from United Nations … Read more
Once again, 2019 marked incredible upheaval and change across the world, just as 2018 did so universally, signaled by the continued rise in nationalism and revolts by women against repression and violence in their daily lives. Reporting on how United Nations member states — all 193 of them — acted in 2019 was a challenge … Read more
WASHINGTON, D.C. — For more than a year, a BBC television team went undercover at the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana, where young female students are routinely extorted by professors. They are vulnerable because they either seek to gain admission to the universities or to secure good grades to allow them to … Read more
It did not take long after the 74th General Assembly session opened this fall for the Trump team to signal that its strategy in key United Nations meetings would be to act as uncooperative and obstructive as possible, especially on human-rights agendas. The 2019-2020 UN year — September to September — is likely to be remembered … Read more
The recent case lodged by The Gambia with the International Court of Justice against Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya is the first time that rape will be prosecuted as genocide at the court, which is based in The Hague. The case has the potential to enhance feminist international law, while reinforcing the need to carry … Read more
Although the first hearings by the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives in the Trump impeachment inquiry may be over, one remarkable aspect stands out: the heroic way the female foreign service officers and policy specialists who testified braved raw personal tweets by the president and the White House, often in real time. As … Read more
African summits may be in vogue worldwide, and Russia’s recent summit in Sochi in late October was no exception. A PassBlue correspondent, Joe Penney, traveled to the Black Sea resort to report on President Vladimir Putin’s pitch to African leaders, as he promoted a second African independence, this time a financial one, with offers of … Read more
NAIROBI, Kenya — More than 6,000 delegates in the population development sector are gathering in the Kenyan capital here this week to renew the promise made to girls and women 25 years ago in Cairo. In firm voices, young girls from African countries called on delegates to ensure that young people have access to sexual … Read more
