Popular singer Ghazala Javed has been killed in northwestern Pakistan, along with her father. Ghazala Javed was a Pashto-language singer in her early twenties. While government sources insist that her ex-husband was the culprit, it is still not clear who is responsible for her death. May Allah give her everlasting peace and justice! Hoda Badran, […]

More than a third of Turkish women have experienced sexual and physical violence at some point, but an anti-violence law was watered down in Turkey last March.  Activists now fear the erosion of women’s rights and increasing gender based violence. While violence between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority in Burma/Myanmar is still increasing, neighbouring […]

An Indian High Court has decided that the marriage of a 16-year old Muslim girl, who was married without parental consent at age 15, is valid and she can stay in her matrimonial home, even though the legal age of marriage in India is 18. Her mother is against the marriage, saying she was kidnapped, but the girl testified that she left […]

The upcoming Olympics and the whole debate around the hijab in sports has resulted in numerous pieces featuring female Muslim athletes, such as Kuwaiti shooter Mariam Erzouqi and Qatari swimmer Nada Arkaji. An article in The Daily Star focuses on the legacy of female Muslim athletes during the Olympics and the fields yet to be conquered. RFERL […]

At the upcoming June 19 elections in Libya, Libyan women hope to secure a good amount of seats in the national assembly. The Saudi Gazette features a story about a Saudi woman, Alya Al-Ghamdi, whose ex-husband denies her the right to see her children, supposedly because he is afraid that her new British Muslim husband […]

Twenty years after the war in Bosnia, there are still refugees living in makeshift camps that lack basic necessities, such as running water. Many of the refugees are elderly women, who are often widowed because of the war, and have nowhere else to go. A Filipino newspaper published a picture last week of a woman […]

Victims of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan cannot rely on the Kyrgyz legal system for help, even though the practice is legally forbidden. One reason for this is that many of these marriages are religious marriages only, and are not registered as civil marriages. According to Kyrgyz official up to 8,000 girls are bridenapped annually, based on […]

Chechnya’s president has openly spoken out in support of honour killings, which leaves Chechen women in fear. Chechnya’s president is known for wanting to make Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.” The Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic group in Burma/Myanmar, and many of them have fled the country to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they often live in […]

From April 19 to April 24, the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) organised a forum in Istanbul, Turkey on the theme of transforming economic power. Women activists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in particular spoke about the ongoing struggle to enshrine women’s rights into new constitutions and increase female participation in new […]

Addressing sexual harassment in Tunisia is a real challenge, as it is often considered to be a non-issue, especially as Tunisia is viewed to be such an advanced country, when it comes to women’s rights. For many women though, sexual harassment is a daily reality. Afghan Massoud Hossaini was awarded a Pulitzer price for his picture of an Afghan […]