カテゴリー: Women’s rights and gender equality
Mahnoor Omer hopes the case will put public pressure on the government to make sanitary products affordable in a country where they cost too much for most womenFor a 25-year-old, seeing her name written on official papers at Lahore’s high court was dau…
The theme of this year’s Women By Women exhibition, Rooted in Resistance, is to showcase images of women defending their land and communities from destruction – by powerful people and corporations or the climate crisis. The pictures, taken by female ph…
Indian artist Indu Antony was mesmerised when she first saw 78-year-old Cecilia and has put her at the heart of a project that interrogates women’s safety in public spaces and celebrates friendshipI first encountered Cecilia a decade ago, as she was cy…
Many Afghan women and girls can no longer communicate or study online after the internet is cut off in 12 provincesLast week, 17-year-old Marjaneh* sat at her computer, waiting for her nightly online English lessons to begin. At 7pm, the scheduled star…
‘Send your daughters or you get no aid’: the Taliban are making religious schools girls’ only option
Food handouts and employment are increasingly tied to Afghan families’ agreement to strict Islamic educationWhen the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Nahid, 24, was midway through an economics degree. She had hoped to work in a …
Divorce is not an end but a beginning, says Rafia Afi, who gets women together to change ideas about toxic marriagesOn the bus making its way through Kerala to the misty hills of Vagamon, a group of 15 women, many wearing hijabs and dupattas, with col…
Those who fled Afghanistan fearing gender apartheid have been forced back to live in a society in which, without a male ‘guardian’, they cannot work or rent a home, leaving them in poverty and open to abuseSafia* thought she had finally found safety …
Five female activists talk about their lives since Sheikh Hasina was ousted – and how the country can secure lasting change for women’s rightsOn 5 August 2024, Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister of Bangladesh and fled the country, the culmination…
Rights activists hail move to arrest Haibatullah Akhundzada and Afghan chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanityThe international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes agai…
Segregation does not make going outside any safer or more comfortable for women – it only reinforces the idea that the public sphere belongs to menA couple of weeks ago, I was in an upmarket neighbourhood in Delhi for a photoshoot. The sun was already …
Ziauddin Yousafzai and Ranjit appear in a new film in which they discuss fatherhood, courage, gender justice and bringing up strong daughtersThe day Ranjit’s daughter was born, he distributed sweets to the entire village – not just because he was thril…
Hundreds of woman in one cane producing district were agreeing to the surgery, say activists, in order to keep working long, physically punishing hoursWomen working in sugar cane fields are still being “pushed” to undergo surgery to remove their womb a…
Afghan fathers, brothers and husbands are under pressure to ensure the women in their families observe the country’s repressive laws. Here, men and women across the country explain how it is affecting family bondsTo be a father of daughters in the Tali…
Hundreds of women forced to confess to ‘moral crimes’ they did not commit have been publicly lashed in AfghanistanThree Afghan women who were brutally flogged in public by the Taliban after being accused of “moral crimes” have bravely spoken out about …