News headlines for “Women’s Rights”, page 6
African Rights Advocates Coordinate Response to Family Law Backlash
- Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, August 13 (IPS) - Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa.
Nicaragua: End of the Electoral Illusion
- Inter Press Service
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, August 12 (IPS) - On 19 July, the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that first brought him to power, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared that his country would hold ‘no more elections’ so that the opposition could never again try to ‘seize power’. Just like that, he scrapped a presidential vote that had previously been pushed back to 2027, abandoning even the fiction of democratic legitimacy. The move changes little in practice, since no free vote had been possible for years. But it’s still revealing: a government that controls the army, the courts, the electoral machinery and the police, and will still not risk even a stage-managed ballot, is one that has lost confidence in its people.
UN Special Rapporteur Urges the Protection of Children’s Rights Amid Deepening Conflict and Digital Threats
- Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, August 12 (IPS) - On July 7, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented a report from the Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse of children, Ai Kihara-Hunt, to the General Assembly, underscoring her goals and priorities for the implementation of protection measures for children worldwide. The report, submitted in coordination with the Human Rights Council, highlights the systemic barriers that leave children increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, including weak government oversight, limited support and justice services for victims, and worsening protracted crises.
Obstetric Violence: Syrian Women Speak Out
- Inter Press Service
ALEPPO, Syria, August 11 (IPS) - The abuse 30-year-old Nour Al-Badawi experienced in an Aleppo public hospital while giving birth resulted in her having two major follow-up operations and left her with depression and anxiety.
INDIA: ‘The Cockroach Janta Party Brings Together Everyone Who Has Been Neglected for Years’
- Inter Press Service
CIVICUS discusses India’s Cockroach Janta Party movement with Harshit Singh, a young activist, poet and storyteller who took part in protests in Delhi.
In Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan, One Woman Refuses a Life of Dependence
- Inter Press Service
KABUL, August 7 (IPS) - The Taliban’s rise to power robbed Mehrmaa of her husband, her job and her chance to live freely.
Burkina Faso’s Cancelled Democracy
- Inter Press Service
LONDON, August 7 (IPS) - Burkina Faso’s charismatic young military leader, army captain Ibrahim Traoré, has stopped pretending. In April, he declared that people should ‘forget about the question of democracy’ because ‘democracy isn’t for us’. When Traoré seized power in September 2022, ousting a leader who’d staged a coup earlier that year, he promised elections by June 2024. The junta broke that pledge, pushing any transition back to 2029. Now Traoré has confirmed he has no intention of restoring democracy. Instead, Burkina Faso’s military junta is tightening its repression, while working with neighbouring states to internationalise its dangerously undemocratic model.
CHINA: ‘The Ethnic Unity Law Means There Is One Acceptable Way to Be Chinese’
- Inter Press Service
CIVICUS speaks about China’s recently implemented Ethnic Unity Law with Gulchehra Hoja, a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and a Uyghur activist and journalist known for her reporting on human rights abuses against Uyghur people in China.
Climate Change Makes Sacred Ice Vanish in Kashmir, Locals Fear Loss of Livelihoods
- Inter Press Service
SRINAGAR, India, August 4 (IPS) - Every summer, before dawn breaks over the Himalayas, Bashir Ahmad leads his horses onto the narrow mountain trail that winds toward the Amarnath cave shrine. For decades, the annual Hindu pilgrimage has been the most important season of the year for his family. The money earned over two months pays for food, school fees, winter supplies, and the upkeep of his animals through the long snowbound months.
Female Genital Mutilation: Winning the Argument, Losing the Funding
- Inter Press Service
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, August 3 (IPS) - Last August, a one-month-old girl in The Gambia bled to death after being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that had been illegal in the country since 2015. FGM is a human rights violation, whatever the appeals to faith or tradition made in its defence, but now the Gambian Supreme Court is being asked to strike the country’s ban down. This is the second attempt in two years to make FGM legal again.
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