World News

Photo by Faruk Tokluoğlu on Pexels.com   Women in Afghanistan are once again at the centre of institutionalised repression, as a new criminal regulation introduced by the Taliban intensifies restrictions over their lives while simultaneously targeting minority groups and dissenting voices. The Criminal Procedure Regulation of the Courts , recently endorsed by Taliban leadership, has indeed been criticised as a deeply regressive framework . Rather than functioning as a neutral

Photo by Liz Martin  on unsplash.com S exual violence has become one of the most severe human rights violations linked to armed conflicts in Ethiopia. Over the past several years, wars and internal fighting in regions such as Oromia, Tigray, and Amhara  have exposed women and girls to rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of gender-based violence. Human rights organizations, journalists, and medical researchers have documented widespread abuses carried out by various armed ac

Photo by Timon Cornelissen on pexels.com   The battle over accountability for grave human rights abuses is not confined to conflict zones or authoritarian crackdowns. In The Gambia, the Supreme Court is poised to rule on a constitutional challenge to the 2015 Women’s (Amendment) Act , which criminalises female genital mutilation (FGM).  Female genital mutilation (FGM) involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia, typically performed on young girls withou

Photo by @ ELG 21  on Pixabay.com The Netherlands’ system of legal and policy protection of women against domestic violence has been the target of warnings by the Council of Europe’s expert group on violence against women (GREVIO). In its most recent report, GREVIO lauded the Netherlands’ efforts to implement the Convention in recent years, but warned that significant changes need to be made in order to better recognise the way in which domestic violence disproportionately af

Photo by Angelo_Giordano on Pixabay.com On September 1st, a magnitude 6 earthquake hit the eastern part of Afghanistan . The aftermath was catastrophic: 2,200 killed, 3,600 injured, and thousands of people were left homeless . The current Taliban government faced its first major natural disaster earlier in 2022 , when another earthquake killed 1,000 people in the same region as this year.  The aid agencies working in the territory were already confronting funding cuts, worse

Photo by consolersafari on pixabay.com From the bombs that fell on city streets to the dusty roads of villages in Darfur and Kordofan, the war in Sudan has turned women’s bodies into battlegrounds. According to UN Women, there is mounting evidence that rape is being used “deliberately and systematically as a weapon of war.” In the besieged region of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, women fleeing bombardment, hunger and displacement recount terrifying stories of gang r

Photo by Levi Meir Clan cy on unsplash.com   The majority of the education systems in Europe often overlook or completely leave out the role of women within human history. Recently, research conducted by the English group  End Sexism in Schools  (ESIS) discovered that, during the first three years of secondary education in England, women were “largely absent from history”. According to this research, 29% of history classes at key stage 3 mentioned women’s role in the given to

Photo by hosnysalah on Pixabay.com In the past two years, due to the attacks perpetrated by the Israeli forces, the situation in Gaza has been exacerbating: people without shelters and forcibly displaced, with no access to basic needs and medication , resulting in barriers to accessing care. Within this scenario, women and girls are facing a living ordeal which undermines their health and could lead to gynecological hurdles , not to forget the psychological implications relat