A few months ago, I came across an article about how more Burmese domestic workers in Singapore were running away from exploitative conditions. The caption of the photo told me a lot about how the mainstream media in Singapore (heavily controlled by the government) viewed these domestic workers as as causing a ‘commotion.’ This reminded […]

I recently came across this video by UNICEF Nigeria about a community’s difficulty in getting all of their children vaccinated against polio. Polio mainly affects children under the age of five, where it can cause muscle weakness, irreversible paralysis, and death. This video recounts the story of a small settlement called Hawan Dawaki in the […]

I recently came across a publication by Cordaid, a Dutch development organisation, called “Looking for That Other Face: Women Muslim Leaders and Violent Extremism in Indonesia” (available here). This publication recounts the stories of six quadragenarian Muslim feminists from three islands of Indonesia (Aceh, Java and Lombok): Ibu Umi Hanisah (Meulaboh), Badriyah Fayumi (Kota Bekasi), Enung Nursaidah […]

Sex and the Citadel is a collection of stories by Shereen El Feki, who spent five years traveling across Egypt and several other Arab countries asking people about sex: “what they do, what they don’t, what they think and why”. Why write about sex? Her choice of subject matter is partly stimulated by how sexual […]

From this year onwards, wearing a niqab is officially an offence in the Netherlands, with “stiff fines” as the punishment. In 2012, interior minister Liesbeth Spies and the Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders pushed for a ban  on dual nationality, which received mixed support within Parliament. What do wearing a face-covering veil and having another nationality […]

In recent months, Indonesia has been appearing in the Asian media every time there is a non-Muslim celebration. I first noticed this with the debates on wishing “Merry Christmas” by Muslims to Christians, on Christians holding Christmas mass, and the accounts of violence done to churches in December 2012. A few weeks ago, the same debates were repeated on the […]

I once asked my mother why boys had to be circumcised, but girls didn’t. Growing up in Singapore in the 1990s, it was more common for boys to be circumcised at the age of 7 or 9, where it resembled more of a rite of passage. They were not allowed to eat certain foods, had […]

Last week, Singapore saw the election of its first woman Speaker of Parliament, Halimah Yacob. Halimah started her political career by joining the governing party since independence, the People’s Action Party (PAP), in 2001. She represented the electoral division of Jurong as a Member of Parliament and was later appointed a Minister of State for the Ministry […]

This year saw two publicised instances of Malay Muslim girls in Malaysia, below the legal age of marriage, getting married to boys who were also relatively young. One couple was Nor Fazira Saad (13 years old) and Mohammad Fahmi Alias (19) from Kedah, Malaysia who were married in their kampong in November. Earlier this year in July, a […]

Mak nyah is the term that transgendered women in Malaysia use to identify themselves. Mak means ‘mother’, and nyah is derived from the literal meaning of ‘running away’ to refer to ‘transition’. Khartini Slamah, a well-known 49-year-old activist and counselor to other transgendered women, explains how and why this term came about in the late 80s, […]