Gender

[By Madhumita Pandey] A ten-year-old girl was recently denied an abortion by the Supreme Court of India. She was a victim of rape, which she alleges was perpetrated by her uncle several times over a period of seven months. Her pregnancy was discovered after she complained of stomach ache and was taken to the hospital, but in late July the ...

[By Shashi Tharoor] NEW DELHI – Sixty-six years after adopting one of the world’s most liberal constitutions, India is being convulsed by a searing debate over a colonial-era provision in its penal code, Section 377, which criminalizes “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal.” It must be changed. Beyond forcing millions ...

[By Lavanya Regunathan Fischer & Devadatt Kamat] Delhi – Recently, hundreds of people once again took to the streets of Delhi as part of the annual Queer Pride Parade to drum up support for equal rights for people of diverse gender and sexuality and rally for “collective freedom from patriarchal oppression”. It was only last year that the Supreme Court ...

[By Zsuzsanna Gal ] In a small Kenyan village called Umoja are only women allowed to live. The whole single-sex community was founded in 1990 by a group of 15 women who were survivors of rape by local British soldiers. Umoja’s population has now expanded to include any women escaping child marriage, FGM (female genital mutilation), domestic violence and rape ...

By Gisele Bündchen New York (Women’s Feature Service) – Did you know how big an impact a simple wood-burning stove can have on a woman’s life? Stoves produce toxic smoke that harms the environment as well as human health. In fact, more people die from this smoke than malaria – globally, about 4.3 million every year. And that’s not all. ...

[By Zsuzsanna Gal] In an atmosphere where every morning newspapers greet people with stories of girls being tormented, raped, killed or treated like a doormat, India’s beautiful small village communities can still bring some good news from time to time. Many parts of India historically favors the birth of a son, but villages like Piplantri in Rajasthan state have a ...

Wellington (Women’s Feature Service) – A true force of nature – that’s how Georgina Beyer is popularly known in her country, New Zealand. Having braved criticism, discrimination and stereotypes to become the first openly transsexual Mayor in 1995 and then Member of Parliament (MP) in 2000, she has indeed paved a new path for the LGBT community across the globe. ...

[By Linda Chhakchhuak] Shillong (Women’s Feature Service) – ‘How are the Khasi-Jaintia-Garo (KJG) tribes resisting patriarchy? What is their secret of survival?’ These two questions were on the minds of Padma Mon and Padamvathi Ashok, researchers and activists from the Koraga tribe, one of the fast-fading matrilineal tribes of southern India, when they travelled from Karnataka all the way to ...

This Sunday, President Obama addressed 5,000 Kenyans in Nairobi in a powerful speech aimed at Kenya’s democratic elements for success in the 21st century. His speech covered three main points focusing on empowering women, fighting terrorism and resisting corruption. Inspiring, motivational, bold and incredibly articulate, Obama did a fantastic job in sparking a desire for change when it comes to ...

Dushanbe (WFS) – Nazokat Begmatova, a humanitarian deminer, didn’t have the opportunity to go to university, which reduced her chances of obtaining what would be widely considered ‘a good job’ in her country. However, rather than tying the knot right after school to ensure financial security, as is the common practice for girls in her country, Tajikistan, she wanted to ...