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 […]

Somali refugee women fear sexual abuse not only by outsiders, but in the home as well. There is currently an increasing trend in reproductive coercion, where husbands force there wives to have as many pregnancies as possible, even though the future for these children is particularly bleak, according to many women. Even though former president Saleh […]

Anneke’s still in the process of moving, so I’m sorry for the shorter-than-usual list of links again this week!  Looking forward to having her back next Friday, insha’Allah. Palestinian Hana Shalabi has ended her hunger strike, but will be exiled to Gaza for the next three years.  Some human rights groups argue that this is […]

Anneke’s traveling this week and next, so I’ll be writing up the lists of links.  My apologies in advance for lists that will be shorter and less comprehensive than usual (and many thanks to Anneke who sent most of these links to me despite how hectic things are!) The murder of Shaima Alawadi, an Iraqi-American […]

Several of hundreds of activists have been protesting against the Moroccan “rape law“, after Amina Filali’s death on March 10. At the same time, the force behind the marriage of Amina and her rapist, Amina’s mother, says that she regrets the marriage, but that she did not really have a choice. A British Muslim juror […]

Syrian women play a central role in the revolution; the BBC features the stories and experiences of several of these activist women. Egyptian anthropologist Hania Sholkamy asks whether there will be a place in Egypt for women’s human rights in the near future. Iranian women activists say “no to war”. They fear that war will aggravate violence […]

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and (almost) every media outlet covered “something” on women in the week leading up to it, as that is the “thing to do” on Women’s Day after all. Not all stories were very newsworthy, and many other topics I covered already recently. As such, I have left many of these articles out, but I might have missed […]