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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Camps for internally displaced persons in conflict-rift states in Nigeria have been known to provide fertile ground for trafficking.
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.
More than 80 women had their names and pictures posted without their consent on the app’s “deals of the day.” Rather than hosting actual transactions, the sole purpose of the app was to humiliate its subjects.
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.