[empower] women’s activism

Security leaks have brought to light a plot to kill human rights defender Asma Jahangir - former UN Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom and the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. Jahangir has been a vocal and outspoken leader of the human rights movement in Pakistan for over 30 years and is respected both within Pakistan and the international community.

Sexual harassment is an everyday issue for women in Nepal, particularly in urban areas. Although exact numbers are unavailable, activists say the problem is on the rise and are demanding change. 

“Harassment is all over Nepal against women and the problem is big. It’s more of a problem where more people live, but it really is everywhere, and it is growing,” said Pratiya Rana, 22, a university student and an organizer of the country’s recent “Walk for Respect” demonstration, the Nepali version of Toronto's SlutWalk, the international protest movement. 

On 9 May 2012, Manal al-Sharif was awarded the Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway. This came shortly after al-Sharif was honored as one of TIME’s100 Most Influential People in the World at a Gala in New York City. Such events have given rise to a pattern: just as numerous pictures and videos of activists attending various conferences and receiving numerous awards surface, waves of criticism pour in. Their motives are viewed with suspicion, worthiness is questioned, and a movement’s progress is reassessed.

Women protesters and rights groups have accused Egyptian troops and prison authorities of sexual assault during the latest crackdown on demonstrations, reviving allegations they are using abuse to intimidate female detainees and protesters. The charges made on Wednesday added new tension to Egypt's presidential election campaign, just two weeks before the voting.

Egypt’s New Women Foundation said they are suing Islamist Parliament member Azza al-Garf over her pro-female genitals mutilation (FGM) statements. The women’s rights foundation sent a letter to the speaker of parliament Saad al-Katatny, informing him of legally going after Garf and asking for his permission to be allowed to take the MP to court.

We, the Violence is not our Culture Campaign, stand in solidarity with the US-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) who has been the target of an unprecedented crackdown by the Vatican. The LCWR is a world-renown highly respected organization of women religious individuals and groups who has a track record spanning decades in promoting human rights and social causes in the United States and abroad. The Vatican subjected the LCWR to a long-drawn investigation and is now using its findings to justify asserting control over the organization.  The LCWR leadership said that the move by the Vatican has taken them by surprise.

Farima Samake, a widow living in the village of Gwelekoro in the south of

Women’s human rights discourse and movements have become entangled within a culture-versus-rights dualism. Yakin Ertürk argues that this is a false dualism which serves both private patriarchy and public patriarchy of neo-liberal globalisation

There has been much controversy over a piece written by journalist Mona Eltahawy in the most recent issue of Foreign Policy Magazine entitled "Why Do They Hate Us: The Real War on Women is in the Middle East". Here Eltahawy and renouned scholar Leila Ahmed discuss the controversy. 

 

Members of Afghan Young Women for Change staged a protest march in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Saturday, denouncing violence against women, according to AFP photographs.

Some among the group of about 30 women were pictured holding placards that read "Where is justice?"

They took to the streets following the killing of five Afghan women in less than a month in three provinces of the country, AFP said.

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