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.

“No hate! No fear! Refugees are welcome here!” Shouts are rising into the night sky in Brooklyn as I write this. I just left the Brooklyn federal courthouse, where hundreds of people are chanting that and more, some slogans more angry and profane than others.

Just like any other population caught up in a war zone, people with disabilities suffer displacement, injury, and trauma. About 6.5 million of the 43.51 million people who have been displaced due to conflict live with a disability. Yet in conflict, when the social fabric is vulnerable and resources are limited, people with disabilities face increased violence while their protection needs often go ignored.

Women face a variety of barriers to full and equal access, including cost, lack of digital literacy, lack of awareness of the Internet’s potential, and entrenched cultural and gender norms that limit them from forming independent connections outside their home or community. These obstacles are worth overcoming.

Her name is Amina. She is a teenage girl. A man in her country, Tunisia, thinks stones should be thrown at her until she dies because she posted a photo of herself on a website. Because she is a woman. Because she had the audacity to make a comment about her own body, and to photograph her body, and to use it to share her ideas with others.

Femicidio. Femicide. The female counterpart to homicide. It is a concept our country has been less exposed to than, for example, Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala, where the word femicidio is seen on the front pages of newspapers much too often.