The Honorable Mary Robinson is the founder and president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change. She was the first female president of Ireland from 1990-1997 and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002, and is a global leader on issues of women’s empowerment and human rights. In July 2013, I sat down with her to discuss climate justice and the role of women in the fight for peace.
A teen religious dissenter, forced to flee her country, now speaks out against religious fundamentalism.
There’s a darkish room, maybe 12 feet by 13 feet, tucked into the back area of the ground floor of a school called Lycée Wima. Seated along walls of peeling paint are more than a dozen women sewing patterned bags, shoes, dresses, and dolls on elegant Singer sewing machines from the time between the last world wars. The work is exacting.
Colonel Magistrate Freddy Mukendi is an imposing man who speaks from behind darkly shaded eyeglasses. He takes up the full space of a lounge chair, giving off a breezy, if formal, comfort in his own skin. Considering his high-level position in the DRC, this may not be entirely unexpected.
Maseru, Lesotho—“That’s how African men are,” the woman said. She and two others laughed aloud at the infidelity of their husbands. Their laughter resonated in the hotel lobby, attracting disapproving stares from the men in business suits who occupied most of the other coffee tables.
There are various forms of violence that women and girls experience, but intimate partner violence is, by far, the most common, with one in three women affected globally. And while a common approach to designing prevention programs for intimate partner violence includes targeting men and women in relationships, new evidence shows that the approach may be misguided.
Today, as part of the UN Human Rights Council’s “Universal Periodic Review” process, Burma will be questioned by every country in the world on the nooks and crannies of human rights abuses happening inside its borders
As Veterans Day approaches, advocates are calling for improvements in care for women veterans, especially those tho are survivors of sexual assault.
In January 2008, during the violence following Kenya’s disputed elections, someone banged on my door. The man was a friend of my neighbor and, since my neighbor wasn’t home, I thought I might be able to help. But when I opened the door, he forced his way into my house and raped me.