The Chinese Government has called for an end to the public shaming of prostitutes in China by police, the New York Times reports this week. Those suspected or accused of prostitution are regularly shackled and paraded in public by law enforcement, exacting the ultimate price for their crime – public humiliation and identification. Just because [...]
In case we needed a sharp reminder of the legal battles our sisters are facing elsewhere in the world, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports that six women, all poor, have been convicted of homicide and sentenced to jail for having abortions. One was a miscarriage, while the others terminated their pregnancies because of rape [...]
The New York Times reported last week on the ghastly inefficient taxation system in Pakistan, where less than two percent of the population pays income tax – least especially the wealthiest. Pakistan has the lowest rate of tax collection in the world. The problem is impunity, money laundering, and inefficient collection systems. Instead of beefing [...]
This week the African Union Summit opens in Kampala, Uganda. The Maputo Plan of Action, one of the most progressive international sexual and reproductive rights and health frameworks authored to date, and put in place by African leaders in 2006, is up for renewal. The plan, penned in Maputo, Mozambique four years ago, expires in [...]
This post is a part of the Global Feminism series, where each GAB editor is sharing her/his own definition of global feminism. What does global feminism mean to you? Discuss this definition and your own definition in the comments below, and join the GAB editorial board and fellow readers for a live chat discussion about global feminism on [...]
This week the New York Times reported on the death of Nirupama Pathak, a high caste woman recently married and pregnant with her partner, a lower caste man. Honor killings, though illegal, have been a chronic practice in India (and a number of other countries) for some time. But recently, the antiquated stain fell upon [...]
Last week the Obama Administration announced the creation of a US$25 million fund available to assist pregnant women and teen mothers. The creation of the fund is a step toward the ‘common ground’ on abortion that Obama continues to strive for. A white whale, if you ask me. Signs so far from both pro- and [...]
Chris “Dudus” Coke, notorious “drug lord,” and basically accused mass murderer (leader of the “Shower Posse” gang) was finally taken into custody last week in Kingston, after a several-week manhunt that left almost 100 people dead in Jamaica. A notable detail of his capture is that Coke was donning a woman’s curly wig when he was [...]
Last year — three long years after it was approved for use in girls — the FDA approved the use of the HPV vaccine for boys. Now the vaccine, which is manufactured by both Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, is recommended for young men and women ages 9 to 26 to protect against several strains of the [...]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali refugee-cum-global freedom fighter, says we must evolve to survive, casting off the antiquated shell of what we’ve known. For Ali this shell is the cloak of religion, specifically Islam, which she claims is an inherently intolerant religion that oppresses the individual, especially women. The individual – alone, free, thinking and questioning [...]
