Last week was International Women’s Day, and a lot of news items this week were related to this event. In Kazakhstan, this day is marked with Miss-competitions and a call by the president for classes to teach mothering skills. RFE/RL marks this day by featuring the stories of several working mothers, from countries like Tajikistan, […]

Morocco’s Penal Code has undergone some minor changes since the death of Amina Filali last year, but Amnesty International says that there is still a bias in the Penal Code, which puts women and girls at risk. A report in India on minority groups and education shows that in secondary school, Muslim girls increasingly stop attending school and disappear faster from […]

Al Jazeera reports that in Syria, women are increasingly becoming weapons of war between the government forces and the opposition. Em Joseph is a 40-year-old female rebel from Syria’s Idlib province and considered a rarity in these parts, but is accepted as a sister in arms by her comrades. There have been reports about a female batallion […]

An attack in Quetta, Pakistan on February 16 in a predominantly Shi’a Hazara neighborhood has killed at least 91 people. Women in Quetta, and in other cities as well, staged protests and said they would refuse to bury their dead until authorities would take action bringing those responsible to justice. After several days of protests, last […]

Some Indonesian Muslim women are taking up a more active role in the country’s radical Islamic groups; many of these women are the wives of jailed convicted terrorists. Despite the fact that Hizb-u-Tahrir, an Islamist group, is banned in Tajikistan, the organization continues to recruit new members, mainly targeting vulnerable women and adolescents. Stories of sexual […]

A story about a female sniper in Aleppo, Syria speaks to the imagination, but articles about the terror Syrian women have to endure are more common. Inside Syria rape and sexual assault is rampant; an initiative by Columbia University hopes to track rape inside Syria by following social media. Khetam Bneyan has been out of Syrian jail […]

While the city of Timbuktu, Mali, is celebrating the end of the Islamist rule, one woman recounts her ordeal, as she was tortured after being caught in public with her boyfriend. In another interview, three Malian women share their experiences under the Ansar Dine regime. Bangladeshi women from the impoverished village of Basatpur have been travelling for two […]

The Syrian regime under leadership of Bashar al Assad is actively recruiting female soldiers to be deployed in checkpoints etc., so that more male soldiers can be deployed at the front lines. The statement by the Indonesian Ulema Council that female circumcision is a constitutional right has sparked a huge debate in the country. Women’s rights […]

A report by the International Rescue Committee tells of the sexual violence many Syrian women and girls cite as the main reason for fleeing the country. The ethnic Hazara community in Pakistan, who are predominantly Shi’a, have been attacked for over two decades, but last week’s attack killed over a hundred Hazaras, leaving behind many […]

Sri Lankan Rizana Nafeek has been beheaded last week in Saudi Arabia, for allegedly killing the baby of her employer. Her family is hoping to obtain her remains, so that she can have a proper burial. May Allah grant her eternal peace and justice. IPS features an article on the many struggles that Yemeni women […]