Amid all the violence happening in Iraq, a workshop at a Californian University aims at building a working group consisting of women within the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education to increase the number of women in leadership roles in Iraqi universities. Egypt’s National Council for Women launched last month a media campaign under the slogan […]

Writing (for Muslimah Media Watch and other platforms elsewhere) has opened up many opportunities to collaborate with other activists from around the world. In particular, some articles I wrote on female circumcision (and also male circumcision) a few years ago attracted a lot of attention from activists and filmmakers, and a fresh round of conversations […]

#IWillProtectYou: 8-year-old Muslim girl’s fear of Donald Trump strikes sympathetic chord in Us service men and women. Adults can take Trump’s rhetoric, but not kids, argues the girl’s mother. Maajid Nawaz, the founding chairman of Quilliam, is yet another man offering an unsolicited opinion on whether we Muslim women should wear the hijab. Since the terrorist attacks […]

In the ultraconservative context of Saudi Arabia, appeals such as recycling and creating Western style public libraries, are breaking new ground: They are coming from some of the more than 900 female candidates in the kingdom’s first nationwide election in which women are able to run — and vote. American Muslim women who wear religious […]

How to keep a hijab on when skydiving in Dubai? A Canadian female skydiving instructor discusses how Muslim women can experience all the excitement in the emirate of Dubai.   What made a young Australian lady defend a Muslim woman against a racial rant? A viral video shows a Muslim couple as victims of a […]

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 […]

My review of the Half the Sky documentary for MMW last month made little mention of any redeeming aspects of the film. On the whole, I felt that the film was sadly overshadowed by the American actresses—and George Clooney!—who accompanied and provided commentary for the Nicholas Kristof production. It became more about the celebrities than […]

Sarabah follows the life of Senegalese rapper Fatou Mandiang Diatta, better known as Sister Fa, and her quest to address female genital mutilation (FGM)* in her village in Senegal. After releasing her first album and marrying a German PhD student, she found herself in Germany working on her music and wanting to commit to raising […]

Dr. Isatou Touray and Amie Bojang Sissoho are two prominent women’s human rights defenders in the Gambia. They are the executive director and program coordinator of the Gambia Committee for Traditional Practices (GAMCOTRAP), which has been active in fighting for the promotion of gender rights, mainly fighting against the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). […]

After watching Moolaadé, I recalled that I had come across a story several months ago of how FGM is combated in Senegal in Kristof and WuDunn’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, released in 2009. Kristof and WuDunn devote the thirteenth chapter of the book (chapter: “Grassroots vs. Treetops”) to looking […]