Human Rights Watch has issued a report on how the war in Syria has affected women. Several human rights organisations accuse Egypt of allowing (sexual) abuse and torture to be used against its female prisoners, despite the promise to fight sexual harassment. Recently, Egypt adopted a new law that makes sexual harassment punishable by law, […]

The crisis in Iraq continues and worsens; last week a female (Sunni) politician was killed while fighting ISIS. It has been reported that ISIS fighters meanwhile are looking for wives among the women that have stayed behind. A women’s organization is trying to provide shelter to women who have been harmed and/or driven out of their homes. Last week a 20-year-old woman was […]

One Muslim women’s group in India has drafted a set recommendations to codify Muslim Personal Laws, calling for the abolishment of oral divorce and polygamy. In a Senegalese fishing town, mothers and wives of illegal migrants who died on their way to Europe have started an association, which creates financial opportunities for these “sea widows” […]

An ongoing summit on ending sexual violence in conflict has resulted in a spike of articles about the topic. The Guardian features an article on a project that addresses sexism and sexual violence in Kosovo among young men. One young Bosnian woman shares her life story as a child, that was conceived during the war through […]

The sister of the pregnant Pakistani woman Farzana Parveen, who was beaten to death in broad daylight outside a court house last week, says that the husband of her sister is guilty of the murder. The initial story was that the father of the victim had killed her for not marrying a man of his […]

A new campaign aimed at discouraging young British Muslims to go to Syria to fight, is now asking Muslim women to play an active role in convincing their male family members to stay put. Mistrust of the police among Muslim women, however, makes that many women would be afraid to report their family members, one […]

The predominantly Kurdish southeastern region of Turkey has the highest number of female mayors after the March 30 elections, partly because of a quota for women in the popular pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). One of the new female mayors in this region is former child bride Berivan Kilic. The controversial draft law in […]

Indonesia had its elections last Wednesday. This time around, parties had to ensure that 30 percent of their candidates were female, but in a country notorious for its corruption, many of these female candidates come from political dynasties or are celebrities; it is even suggested that to become a female candidate not much more is […]

Elections in Afghanistan are scheduled for April 5. While many activists don’t expect that the outcome will change much for the situation of women in country, millions of women throughout the country have registered themselves as voters. Jamila Karimi is a MP, known for staying far from corruption, who hopes to be re-elected in the […]

The mayor of Indonesia’s second-largest city Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, has vowed to close down the city’s largest brothel complex; other mayors have made similar promises, but this particular mayor is known for her can-do approach. Hundreds of Crimea Tatars, mainly women and children, are leaving Crimea for Ukraine, out of fear of how Russian rule […]