Turkish Sufi scholar and lawyer Ömer Tuğrul İnançer has said during an interview that the presence of visibly pregnant women in public is disgraceful. This has sparked an outcry in Turkey, and many (very pregnant) women took to the streets in some of Turkey’s major cities.
The lack of refugee camps in Lebanon for Syrian refugees leaves many refugees, predominantly women and children, scattered throughout the country in makeshift shelters, abandoned buildings, and so forth. Sexual harassment and demands for sex by landlords, aid workers etc. are not uncommon, and many women and girls do not see any other solution than to resort to “survival sex” in order to secure food and money for their families.
The detention of Kuwaiti politician Sara Aldrees, after she wrote four tweets that were critical of the current Kuwaiti Emir, shows the increasing involvement of women in Kuwaiti politics.
In Niger, 75% of women get married before the age of 18, making it one of countries where child marriage is most prevalent.

An activist with a painted face to resemble a tiger takes part in a protest against Sumatran tiger trade that marks the Global Tiger Day, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Image by AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana.
The owner of the Afghan radio station Voice of Women, which broadcasted programs on women’s issues in various local languages, has been forced to shut it down, after refusing to pay bribes.
The BBC features another article on the all-female Jirga in Pakistan’s Swat valley.
The suggestion that the female marital age should be changed from 18 to 23 in Ghana, does not go well with a leading Muslim organization.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, female suicide, predominantly by self-immolation, and domestic violence remain important issues, but local civic organizations seem to be unable to deal with these.
Police ordered to cancel a lecture by Islamic scholar Amina Wadud at the University of Madras, India, citing “law and order.”
BBC World Service features a radio program on the question of who decides what Muslim women should wear.
After last week’s riots in France, after police ordered a Muslim woman in niqab to uncover her face to check her identity, the ban on face veils is once again debated.
The head of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization calls for disbanding the Islamic Defenders Front, after an aggressive Ramadan raid by the IDF killed a pregnant woman and injured her husband.
The Tajik marriage reform, which was supposed to make marriage between (non-Muslim) foreigners and Tajik women more difficult, has misfired; it has particularly affected cross-border marriages between individuals from communities that share ethnic, cultural and religious ties.
The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is concerned about the status of Afghan women during the peace process.
The Guardian features a piece on the Bangladeshi “info ladies”, who travel the country side with a laptop, a camera, pregnancy and blood sugar tests and some cosmetics to provide information and a chance to speak with loved ones who are abroad.
In 2019 the new subway system in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is scheduled to be finished, which would provide women with a more cost-friendly and independent means to travel.
Iranian women, who aspire to become models or just famous, turn to online social networking sites and try by profiling themselves as (non-hijab wearing) models to get noticed and obtain a modeling contract abroad.
Tattooing was once very popular among indigenous women in Algeria’s Aurès mountains, but with the vanished tattooists, the knowledge of the symbolism has disappeared too.
The British Psychological Society features a piece on a report which claims that British Muslim women who wear the hijab have a more positive body image.