A Colombian peace court is opening a new legal case that could bring justice for the first time to thousands of victims of gender-based crimes committed by the FARC and the military during decades of bitter conflict.

The risk of intimate partner violence is consistently higher among women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa than among those living without it — even for pregnant women, who are often first informed of their status during prenatal screenings.

Not only does Turkey’s recent offensive endanger civilians and critical infrastructure and facilities, but it also threatens the achievements—and very survival—of the women’s revolution that has been taking place there for over a decade.

The Taliban's decrees over the past two years have resulted in the severe marginalization of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan society, which they exploit to gain attention on the global stage.

At long last, same-sex marriage could soon be recognized under Indian law. As of April 18 of this year, a total of 18 petitions have now been introduced to the high court to legalize same-sex marriage.

In October, the United Nations Committee Against Torture issued a final decision in Elizabeth Coppin v. Ireland that once again dashed hopes of justice for survivors of one of Ireland’s worst regimes of torture and abuse.

While abuse and discrimination against women and persons with disabilities is punishable by law in Malawi, in a patriarchal culture with a pronounced belief in the existence of witchcraft, men are at liberty to abandon their families on the basis of disability alone.

A look back on 10 years of a revolution centered on the liberation of women.

While India is one of the few countries yet to criminalize marital rape, the high court recently ruled that victims of marital rape are entitled to a safe and legal abortion, establishing in Indian law that non-consensual sex can and does exist among married partners.

As men migrate north to the United States in search of better lives for their families, the women left behind are taking on many new community responsibilities once occupied by their husbands.

Women Under Siege spoke with American anti-war activist Jody Williams, Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee about their trip with Nobel Women's Initiative to Ukraine, the stories they heard there, and how Ukrainian women are fighting for peace in their country.

On August 15, as India was celebrating the 75th anniversary of its independence, 11 men convicted of gang-raping a Muslim woman in 2002 were granted premature release from their life sentences.

In the Philippines, there aren't enough resources to go around to support a coordinated strategy against child sex trafficking in online spaces.

After a scathing experience in one of India's top media houses, Meena Kotwal, a Dalit journalist, founded The Mooknayak, an independent online media outlet that reports on caste oppression and systemic violence against marginalized communities across India.

Caught in the throes of overlapping social and economic crises, women in Venezuela there have almost no resources to protect themselves or their children from harm. Violence against women and girls — including incest — remains prevalent, and invisible, throughout the country.

In her upcoming memoir “This Arab Life: A Generation’s Journey into Silence,” Amal Ghandour weaves personal history to offer a thoughtful meditation on the veil's place within a modern Middle East.

Survivors of brutal violence by Islamic State militants played a central role in advocating for reparations from the Iraqi government that failed to protect them, and though they question its ability to implement a reparations program, they have little choice but to hope.

It has been five years since the Marawi Siege ended, and while the government has steadily completed infrastructure projects at the former heart of the firefights, the Maranao people have not been able to return to their ancestral lands. Many suspect that the government’s plans to commercialize the city are what's really preventing the IDPs from returning.

Anti-Muslim violence and hate speech have become normalized under the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but activists say that the attacks against India’s Muslims have ratcheted up over the last year — particularly, against Muslim women.

The legal challenge against Turkey’s largest women’s rights group is suspected of having political motivations, appealing to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s conservative voter base while distracting from the country’s economic challenges.

Using funds from her own pocket, one retired schoolteacher has been providing free education for children in one Indian slum for the last 13 years.

On March 25, the Islamic Republic of Iran began its four-year term as a new member of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) — “the principal global intergovernmental body dedicated to promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment” — after being elected by secret ballot last year.

The competition for the presidency, between the only son of a “strongman” and a widow, resonates with the enduring friction between a woman-centered native culture and the infrastructure of patriarchal political dynasties bred by colonialism in the Philippines.

The WHO's new guidelines can serve as an authoritative confirmation for what American reproductive rights activists have always known: abortion is essential healthcare.

Last September, as India braced itself for another deadly Covid-19 wave amid the upcoming festival season, “La Beauté & Style salon” — the country’s first-ever salon run and managed by trans men — quietly opened its doors in the heart of a bustling market in Ghaziabad, in the capital of New Delhi.

The events following the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine brought despair for thousands of elderly and disabled civilians who were unable to flee. Russia has been claiming strikes on cities all around the country, and the fighting has left countless civilians injured, helpless, and desperate in a war zone.

In a culture that can see girls as a burden, many women opt to abort their female fetuses — even though it's illegal.

Child rape is increasing in Nepal, but many girls are dissuaded from reporting it.

International Women’s Day marches mark how feminist movements have exploded across Mexico, as elsewhere in Latin America — a region with some of the highest rates of sexualized violence in the world.

In Lebanon, where childbirth care is highly medicalized and dominated by obstetricians in private hospitals, women are often persuaded to have cesarean sections, the revenue for which procedure is key for hospitals struggling to survive amid economic collapse.

In a landmark case for justice in Guatemala, five former paramilitary soldiers were convicted by a special tribunal of crimes against humanity for sexualized violence committed against five indigenous Maya Achí women during the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict.

About 400 women on average are prosecuted every year in the Andean country, blocking eligible women from accessing safe, timely, and free abortions. Underage girls are not exempt from such criminal prosecution and face sweeping sanctions, from restricted movement to mandatory community service, if convicted.

Sanitation work in India still involves illegal manual labor, with as many as 1.3 million Indians from certain caste groups employed as 'manual scavengers,' who load waste onto baskets or metal troughs to carry off for disposal. Not only is the work detrimental to their long-term health, but it’s also a cause for inhumane discrimination, which not only affects how they’re treated out in society but also their pursuit of alternative livelihoods.

Camps for internally displaced persons in conflict-rift states in Nigeria have been known to provide fertile ground for trafficking.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's "heavy-handed and punitive" — and exceedingly militarized — pandemic strategy largely accounts for why the Philippines continues to suffer nearly two years on.

Only one gynecologist serves the 8,000 to 13,000 people of reproductive age who need those services in the municipality of Shuto Orizari in North Macedonia’s capital city, the only municipality with a Roma majority in the country. And as of last month, he’s no longer on duty.

With an ongoing civil war that’s worsening a dire humanitarian crisis, women in Yemen are challenging societal rules in order to provide for their families.

For nearly four decades, Baba Wayil, a small Muslim village situated on the foothills of the snowclad Zabarwan Range in Indian-administered Kashmir, has cultivated fame for its blanket ban on dowries and lavish weddings.

New proposed legislation from Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, is being criticized by population and public health experts as not only unnecessary but discriminatory—particularly, against the state’s Muslim minority.

Doctors in Nigeria have gone on strike at least four times since the start of the pandemic over unpaid wages; its last ended on October 4, after 63 days. We have no way of measuring the consequences for women and children, who were unable to access medical care in that time.

"TIBBI," a telehealth solution meant to digitize the operations of lady health workers (LHWs) in Pakistan for better efficiency, has been ill-received by their patients: workers reported being yelled at and thrown out of homes for being vulgar and recording information on their devices.

Given entrenched cultural norms, the U.S. and the international community should demand that the new Taliban regime uphold the basic rights of Afghan women as defined by the Afghan constitution.

Across western Nepal, tradition remains stronger than law as villagers find new ways to partake in “chhaupadi,” the age-old tradition of exiling women during menstruation because periods have been long considered impure.

Journalists and activists in Bosnia and Herzegovina are routinely harassed, threatened, and intimidated for their work with refugees and migrants entering the country via the Western Balkan route.

Myanmar's garment worker union members are not only fighting for an end to military dictatorship; they are also fighting for the elimination of systemic harassment and violence that has plagued their lives long before the coup.

Women who participated in anti-CAA protests nearly two years ago continue to be targeted by law enforcement, bearing the full brunt of the security apparatus or facing aggressive intimidation.

In Kashmir, a longstanding history of mistrust with the Indian central government stands in the way of more people getting vaccinated — including pregnant women, who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.

A new pilot program will be introduced in the upcoming school year to teach sex education to high school students in North Macedonia — and right-wing backlash has already arisen to challenge its implementation.

Uganda's new Sexual Offenses Bill, which passed in parliament in early May, is meant to strengthen existing protections against sexualized violence, but feminists and human rights advocates have criticized the new legislation as a veiled attack against LGBTQ+ Ugandans and those in the sex industry.

Overburdened and underpaid, India’s health workers, known as accredited social health activists (ASHAs) — all of whom are women — continue to work without sufficient PPE kits, facing harassment and stigma.

Women who have been victimized by displacement also find themselves preyed upon in the IDP camps (by camp officials and other IDPs alike), no access to justice or protection.

“Because We Are Girls” follows the story of three sisters on their journey to heal from the long-buried trauma of childhood sexual abuse decades before.

Without systematic laws and labor protections to acknowledge and defend their rights, LGBTQ+ persons working in Sri Lanka's economic zones are left at the mercy of their employer's biases.

Infant formula brands are exploiting public health concerns by falsely suggesting they offer protection against COVID-19, according to new research.

The Philippines is witnessing a rise in women leading suicide missions, leaving the government challenged to simultaneously understand them and anticipate their next move.

Royal Bahamas Police Force report that during the pandemic, more teenage girls have gone missing than in years past, and activists say it is part of a larger pattern of abuse.

Everard’s case shook the nation as an outraged public demanded more safety for women against pervasive male violence. And while a serving Metropolitan police officer remains in custody for her kidnapping and murder, the question of law enforcement's role in ensuring that safety provokes national conversation.

Pregnant workers in the tea gardens of Assam, a northeastern state in India, lack access to basic health care facilities, much less to the comprehensive maternity care they need to ensure healthy pregnancies. And the confluence of poverty, lack of access, and lack of awareness speak to why the state's maternal mortality ratio is double that of India's average and the highest in the country.

When a Telegram group called “Public Room” was discovered sharing private images and contact information of countless women and girls from across North Macedonia without their consent, the outrage was swift, but authorities' lackluster response to online crimes against women signals a critical need for more protections — and better enforcement.

The Mexico City government erected barricades around the National Palace of Government as a "wall of peace" intended to protect the historic building ahead of the 8M International Women’s Day protest on March 8, 2021. It did not go well.

The UN fact-finding mission on Venezuela documented physical and sexualized violence committed against women and girls who took part in anti-government protests, or who were perceived as dissidents, as activists and journalists are actively targeted by security forces under the Nicolas Maduro regime.

A father holds hands with his daughter, a survivor of sexualized violence during Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war for independence. Twenty-two years later, she is among thousands of survivors of systemic rape still awaiting justice.

While President Biden’s memorandum provides a welcome change to the dangerous situation established by the Trump administration, it only partly restores the status quo of four years ago. The timing, presentation, and language of the actions indicate that abortion rights advocates will have to continue to fight to make abortion rights a bigger priority for the Biden administration.

In a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world, a sex worker-led health care model succeeds in serving its own community.

The growth in political representation of Black and trans women in Brazil's city governments has not gone unnoticed by right-wing parties, making them visible targets for racist and death threats and abuse.

In spite of the high mortality rate, large numbers of refugees are still continuing to cross. And for pregnant women, the road to Europe is all the more perilous.

Specialists in sexual and reproductive health say that gynecological violence is a form of violence with many varied expressions, from unnecessary procedures, the pathologization of physiological processes, medical misinformation and maltreatment, aggressive practices that provoke harm and injuries, and even inappropriate and violating comments like those that both women heard — all of which are experienced during gynecological care beyond pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium.

The “love jihad” bill is yet another attempt by Hindu nationalists to demean and malign the Muslim population by portraying Muslim men as sexual predators who commit jihad by converting Hindu women to Islam.

While protests have seen unprecedented participation by young women, they have also been mired by sexual and gender-based violence against young women by the police. It is time for the international community to heed the call of Hong Kong-based activists and hold the government to account for this human rights crisis.

The conflict-torn Himalayan valley has seen a surge in mental health cases since the abrogation of the autonomous status of the region, with women among the most distressed.

A cocktail of structural barriers with law enforcement and throughout the judicial process — such as drawn-out, humiliating investigations and trials — ensures that justice for victims remains evasive.

A new study predicts that there will be 6.8 million fewer female births compared to male births in India between 2017 to 2030, due to the country’s strong preference for sons and falling fertility rates.

An interview with Anna Simone, a sociologist and a professor at the University of Roma Tre, about how women and men are scrutinized differently by the Italian media and public.

Media coverage of sexual violence in India, both domestically and globally, has ignored the vast majority of rapes. Obscured from public view by the media, those stories that don’t make national and global headlines face near-insurmountable hurdles to justice.

The crises that compel refugees to attempt the dangerous journey to Europe haven't ended. Many, including pregnant women, continue to risk drowning, meeting violent pushbacks at sea and land borders, living in unsafe conditions in the camps, and facing racist violence and discrimination.

A new movement has sparked public discourse among Iranian women as they take to social media with their own #MeTooIran moments.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's pardon of US Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton in the killing of Jennifer Laude, a transPinay, in a hotel room in Olongapo reflects the country's historic subservience to US military interests.

Despite the government's pre-emptive measures to curb violence against women under lockdown, gender-based crimes skyrocketed during the state-mandated quarantine.

A group of researchers have turned to traditional coffee ceremonies to help stem intimate partner violence (IPV) in Ethiopia and educate about HIV in the country’s more rural areas.

OMAS GEGEN RECHTS, or “Grandmothers Against the Extreme Right,” challenges the revival of far-right extremism with personal histories inextricably tied to theirs and their parents' experiences with similar movements in the past against fascism, misogyny, and racism.

The Al Hassan case has the potential to shine light on the unique harm perpetrators commit against individuals based on their gender, which enforces patriarchal social norms and increases the potency of their crimes. It could also chart a path forward for international criminal law to define gender.

Gender inequality and stringent cultural beliefs left women most vulnerable to the HIV epidemic. With the coronavirus, Malawi mustn't repeat the same mistakes.

The pandemic has further revealed how workers in the global garment industry — especially women, who make up nearly three-quarters of garment workers — are sacrificed as economic collateral, and how fast fashion prioritizes profits over people.

While Colombian media covers stories of sexualized violence in almost exploitative detail, it fails to highlight the victims’ ethnicity and race, thereby following a long tradition of obscuring who in the country is disproportionately victimized, as well as hiding the underlying structural causes that leave them most vulnerable.

While Greece has slowly begun to reopen, overcrowded refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesbos are still under lockdown. And without government intervention, experts and activists say that residents there are just sitting ducks waiting for an outbreak of the coronavirus to sweep through the camps like wildfire.

Years after Marawi was liberated from jihadists loyal to the Islamic State, thousands of residents have not been allowed to return to their own land. Now, they face the government’s backhoes contracted to flatten the remnants of their ancestral property to commercialize the city and make it a tourist destination.

As climate change and the pandemic inflate food sales, families in Kenya's slums, already sunken into poverty, are resorting to marrying off their young daughters.

Cases under India’s Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act are meant to be fast-tracked, but the reality of the judicial system's backlog often means that those cases can drag on for years. One of Delhi's most infamous and horrific rape cases is among them. Amid the long slog of court appearances, postponements — and now, the pandemic — a child victim grows up.

Women survivors of sexual torture under Augusto Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship in Chile never felt that the horrors suffered during that time have ever been adequately confronted, allowing his legacy to remain intact. Then his relative was appointed to a political role protecting women's rights.

When an Instagram private group of twenty schoolboys from Delhi's elite schools fantasizing and degrading their female classmates went viral, it was supposed to offer a cultural reckoning for India's teens about misogyny and gendered violence. Then, it took a dark turn.