カテゴリー: Global development
With up to one in five new mothers suffering depression or psychosis, experts say the need for help is ‘overwhelming’ IndiaA month after giving birth, Divya tried to suffocate her new daughter with a pillow. “There were moments when I loved my baby; at…
As its economy implodes and the food crisis grows, its people feel betrayed. No wonderThe global attention has dissipated, but the crisis is intensifying. The bleak year that Afghans have endured is turning to a still bleaker winter. The UN World Food …
Family say the body of Dr Nader Alemi, who was taken by armed men in September, showed signs of tortureOne of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists, who was abducted by armed men in September, has been found dead, his family has confirmed. Dr Nade…
Criminalisation means survivors are vulnerable to blackmail to avoid imprisonment and stigma, but there is hope the colonial-era legislation could soon be repealedIt was when the police knocked on Aatifa Farooqui’s* door and threatened to send her to p…
Months after Mohadese Mirzaee became Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, the Taliban took Kabul. Now a refugee in Bulgaria, she is determined to fly againSitting alone in her small flat in Bulgaria, Mohadese Mirzaee contemplates the fu…
Wave of abductions amid military crackdown in conservative Balochistan province has mobilised women to protestThe surroundings of the Missing Persons protest camp in Pakistan’s troubled region of Balochistan are sadly familiar to 12-year-old Ansa. For …
Despite talk of a Taliban ban, in Helmand’s poppy fields farmers and traders say they are not the only ones who depend on the drug to surviveThe Taliban’s announcement that it plans to ban the production of opium in Afghanistan does not faze seasoned d…
Women’s rights activists fear for their lives as Afghanistan’s new rulers infiltrate, detain, beat and torture groups of protestersA month ago, Reshmin was busy organising protests against Taliban rule in online groups of hundreds of fellow women’s rig…
An economic crisis aggravated by conflict and drought have caused a collapse in food security since the Taliban takeover More than half of Afghanistan’s population is facing acute hunger as the country has been thrown into one of the world’s largest fo…
The WHO and Unicef campaign will restart after three years, and the hardliners say they will assist and allow frontline female staffAfghanistan will restart nationwide polio vaccinations after more than three years, as the new Taliban government agreed…
Rights groups raise concerns over deal to provide services on Bhasan Char, as Bangladesh plans to increase camp’s population by 80,000The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) is facing questions over whether it is helping to detain Rohingya refugees in prison-l…
Activists highlight the poverty, stigma and abuse faced by women deserted by spouses living abroad Kamala Reddy*, 33, a software engineer from Andhra Pradesh, married Vijay Kumar* in a traditional Hindu wedding in 2012. Kumar, who was working in the UK…
From China backtracking on coal to Britain’s ‘chicken king’ calling for a rethink of food production, the virus has accelerated nationalist impulses towards autarkyWhen Xi Jinping promised the world’s movers and shakers in January 2017 that China would…
Migrants, many fleeing the Taliban regime, claim they are being beaten, harassed and turned back by Turkish border forcesAs the sun sets over a dusty ravine on the outskirts of Van city in eastern Turkey, Muhammdullah Sangeen and dozens of other Afghan…