One famous singing icon who has a particularly strong following in Latin America and the Middle East due to her cultural connections to both regions is Shakira. Recently, a debate arose worldwide over her boyfriend, famous footballer Gerald Pique “forbidding” Shakira from doing sensual music videos with men, raising the question to whether a partner […]
Here’s a little quiz to start you off with: In which profession do women make up less than 2% of the global workforce? I’ll give you a clue and exclude religious callings, firefighters and clowns from your choice of possible answers. (Hint: The title of this post might be a little bit of a giveaway!) […]
Millions of women and young girls across the globe continue to be denied their rights to equal and fair access to education and healthcare and many are faced with gender-based violence such a female genital mutilation (FGM)/female circumcision, child marriage, child trafficking, honor killings, female infantcide, domestic violence and other gender inequality and sexually-based human rights abuses every day. […]
In retrospect, it wasn’t that unusual of an event but would be one that finally broke the silence surrounding violence against women in the world’s second largest country. On December 16, a 23-year-old medical student travelling with a male companion on a bus in New Delhi was beaten and gang raped by a group of […]
Sadly, discriminatory policies exist in many places that claim to be democracies. Fortunately, one country in Africa recently did something about one such policy. The High Court of Botswana should be praised for taking a stand on gender equality, and we can only hope that other countries with official or accepted policies that subjugate women […]
Over half of the worlds population is female, yet they unjustly receive an unfair balance in life from conception. No society is spared from it’s second class treatment of the female population. No matter how long and hard the fight has been — and while some countries are clearly better than others — girls are […]
A mother breastfeeds one of her twin babies at Jose Fabella Medical hospital in Manila, Philippines © Jason Gutierrez/IRIN Filipino breast milk bank gives babies a chance A state-run breast milk bank in the Philippines is helping to fend off infant mortality in Manila, the capital, and elsewhere as breastfeeding rates differ among the […]
Child marriages spike among Syrian refugees The young teenage daughters of Syrian refugees in Jordan are increasingly being married to older Syrian men — against the laws of both countries — as a form of financial and other security against a backdrop of conflict and instability. “We’re concerned about early marriages — using that as […]
London Summit offers crucial opportunities for women, health The London Summit on Family Planning opened today and aims to prioritize and fund family planning globally. It aims to give women “the tools to make critical decisions about the size of their families and the spacing of their pregnancies,” writes Nafis Sadik, whose United Nations roles […]
Children of the Earth summit — 1992 and 2012 As young people weigh in with their impressions of the ongoing Rio+20 conference, this documentary series, Zero Ten Twenty, looks back on the lives of children born in 1992–the year of the groundbreaking Earth Summit. Working to include women in development recipe The United Nations is hosting […]
UNICEF has released their 2011 Annual Report. The report gives a global overview of the previous year’s achievements and highlights a number of various international, regional, and national collaborations. The report highlights UNICEF’s contributions to achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goals by providing increased assistance to children in need around the globe. The report highlights […]
Development aid pulled from Guinea-Bissau Millions of dollars in assistance to Guinea-Bissau have been suspended by the World Bank and African Development Bank after military leaders staged a coup, scuttling presidential elections and detaining the leading candidate. Elections next would be held in two years, said the coup leaders, who chose the former vice president […]
The World Economic Forum released their annual Global Gender Gap Report today, reporting on how successfully (or unsuccessfully) countries have been in the last year when it comes to closing the gender gap between men and women in the key areas of political and economic participation, educational opportunities, and health. Norway lost out on its […]