by Arwa Aburawa -U.K.- When I first heard about the murder of Nancy Zaboun in Bethlehem on Monday, July 30, all I could think about was that another woman had been let down by the system. A weak and underfunded...
by Alexandra Marie Daniels Arts, Culture & Media Editor Although it feels like it is a film from the 1990’s recently stumbled upon and re-discovered high up on a shelf in a dusty box, How to Survive a Plague directed...
by Manar Ammar -Egypt- “I was weeping and called on my mother for help, but the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. It was her, yes. I could not be...
by Alexandra Marie Daniels -USA- Someone tried to silence Anna Politkovskaya. An investigative journalist with a bleeding heart, she was assassinated on October 7, 2006 at age 48 in her apartment building in Moscow. As expressed in the opening scenes...
by Zubeida Mustafa -Pakistan- A version of the following article was originally published August 12, 2009. In light of recent reports of illegal kidney transplants in Pakistan, the author has updated the article. – Ed. Several years ago Pakistan’s newspapers...
by Moira Birss -USA- “Ciudad Juárez won’t be a big deal. You spent two years in Colombia!” my friend reassures me. “Yeah,” I reply with nervous knots in my stomach, “but isn’t Juárez one of the most dangerous cities in...
by Meghan Lewis -Cambodia- “Feelings, oh feelings, please accept this. I have not wronged - even in law. We wish to have a place in this world and to love one another freely.” -Noy Sitha, 58, Women’s Network for Unity...
by Mandy Van Deven - India - Asma. Rukhsana. Zakia. Duaa. Fereshteh. Somayeh. Heshu. Samera. Amneh, Zahra. Semse. As an investigative journalist, Rana Husseini had no intention of shifting careers to become a human rights activist until she was given...
by Neeta Lal - India - The alleged rape of a nine-year-old Russian girl in January by two Indian men in Goa has ricocheted far beyond India’s resort state. Famous for its sun, sand and surf, since the assault this...
by Priyanka Bhardwaj - India - Last year’s World Economic Forum study on gender parity gave India a dismal ranking: 114th out of 134 nations. Only 77% of women are literate and just 23% are employed. UNICEF’s 2009 State of...
by Suad Hamada - Bahrain - Fadhila is only allowed to go to the toilet after asking permission from her husband, she also puts up with his frequent demands for sex - even when she’s menstruating – but neither is...
by Katharine Daniels Executive Editor & Founder, The WIP This past weekend I was invited to keynote the Global Women’s Conference at CSU Fullerton. It was a great opportunity for me to reflect on the journey that we’ve been on...
by Rachel Meyer - USA - As I sit and write this, a young man sits in County Jail awaiting his sentence. Three years ago he was involved in a fight while in juvenile hall for drug related charges. This...
by Moira Birss - Colombia - “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid,” Jorge tells me. “Your right to freedom disappears - you have to limit your movements and activities.” I would be afraid, too; Jorge and...
by Katharine Daniels Executive Editor, The WIP - USA - For me and my colleagues, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is exhilarating. Already in its 17th printing, Half...
by Sarah McGowan Features & Photo Editor, The WIP I was called a prostitute, I was called a thief…I was called all sorts of names, but none of the newspapers came to call me defender of children’s rights. Very ironic...
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Copenhagen is an odd mix of frustrating inertia and vigilant protest as week two of the COP15 UN climate conference at the city’s Bella Center continues in tandem with Klimaforum09, the people’s summit, and...
by Abigail Wendle - USA - According to the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association, during last year’s highly contested presidential election an estimated 2,000 women and girls were the targets of politically-motivated sexual violence in Zimbabwe. State-sanctioned groups under President Robert...
by Miaad A. Hassan - USA - For a long time she resisted, but four years ago Amal started to wear the hijab - her bright and shining youth draped in black. She is a 25-year-old Iraqi woman, and she...
by Dr. Emel Baştürk Akca - Turkey - “We mothers, whose hearts are burning, have come together so that there will be no more pain. We do not want our children to die.” These words belong to Nurten Ekinci, a...
by Shreyasi Singh - India - Sometimes, just asking for a small cup of milk to brew your tea can bring domestic violence to a halt. Sounds too simple a solution? Well, it need not be as a recent public...
by Lesley D. Biswas - India - When Mili held her newborn baby girl in her arms she wept, not with joy but with a deep sense of pain and disgust. The child reminded her of the intense physical pain...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Burma (also known as Myanmar) is a closed country, literally. Since the 1962 military coup, few outsiders have even entered the Southeast Asian country. News reports are scarce and often unreliable because the news...
by Moira Birss - Colombia - The sparse media coverage of Colombia tends only to give vague descriptions of a violent country with a thriving drug trade. But I’ve come to understand in my 15 months living and working here...
by Aditi Bhaduri - India - A mini revolution is underway in India. On July 2nd the Delhi High Court read down a 149-year-old archaic law that criminalized same sex relations. It is a tiny victory for a battle that...
by Stine Eckert - USA - When the Malaysian government expelled Bangladeshi migrant workers from the country in 1998 because it needed jobs for its own people, 32-year old Sheikh Rumana was one of them – after having worked under...
by Handan T. Satiroglu - Europe/USA - Spaniards enjoy one of the world’s longest lives: A girl born today can expect a lifespan of 84 years, a boy 78 years. In 2000 the World Health Organization used a variety of...
by Mahi Ramakrishnan - Malaysia - Eight years ago I followed the Muslim religious authorities, dubbed the morality police, on a raid in Malaysia's federal capital, Kuala Lumpur for an article I was writing on the religious body and its...
by Suad Hamada - Bahrain - Hell is what most Arabs think of when the word “transsexual” comes into any conversation since many mistake it with homosexuality, which is a sin in Islam. Most transsexuals prefer to remain anonymous since...
by Vera von Kreutzbruck - Germany - One of life’s sweet pleasures is to travel. Thanks to the increasing number of low-cost flights, traveling abroad is no longer a luxury reserved for the privileged few. At the same time, however,...
by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel - India - In July I spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in honor of the tens of thousands of people who have lost their lives to gun violence in my part of the world. The...
by Zubeida Mustafa - Pakistan - A few years ago, Pakistan’s newspapers and magazines were awash with pictures of shirtless men displaying scars on their torsos indicating they were organ donors. There were villages where practically every male adult claimed...
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Danes are often dubbed “the happiest people in the world” by the U.S. media, and this may be due in part to Denmark’s advanced state-managed, single-provider healthcare system. Every citizen – as well as...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - There have been many obstacles that threaten the already shaky power sharing agreement between the ZANU PF and MDC political parties, stalling much needed progress in Zimbabwe. Convincing the donor community to assist or...
by Shailja Patel - Kenya - And they asked him: Why do you sing? And he answered, as they seized him: I sing because I sing And they searched his chest But could only find his heart And they searched...
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - In Demark, despite strict immigration laws, it isn’t uncommon to see large groups of young Filipina women congregating on train station platforms or giggling together in public. In Copenhagen, state-sanctioned domestic workers are often...
by Mridu Khullar - India / USA - In December 2008, Binghamton, New York, became one of just six cities in the United States to enact laws protecting against weight discrimination. The others are San Francisco and Santa Cruz (California),...
by Pushpa Iyer - USA - At the entrance to the eerily preserved torture rooms in Tuol Sleng (the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia), there is a sign bearing the face of a distinctly Cambodian man who is laughing....
by Suad Hamada - Bahrain - Getting a divorce and custody of one’s children is very difficult in Bahrain, even in cases where a husband sexually attacks his wife. The issue was exposed to the public last year, when an...
by Brittany Shoot - Denmark - Some people no doubt find it exciting to adjust to a new society or a new city. My time in Copenhagen – nearly nine months so far – has not been completely negative, but...
by Saskia van Alphen - Argentina - The current Argentinean government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has made Justicia or human rights one of the main items on its political agenda, so much so that it aims to judge and...
by Charukesi Ramadurai - India - India is now the land of The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women. Who would have thought?...
by Pushpa Iyer - USA - It was close to 8pm on a Saturday two months ago. I was walking down a big, busy street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with a colleague, returning to our hotel after having dinner. As...
by Zubeida Mustafa - Pakistan - In Pakistan, people with disabilities are generally missing from public places such as shopping malls, restaurants and even universities. But it’s not that the country doesn’t have its share of the disabled; on the...
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - In what is being hailed as a victory for democracy, the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir recently concluded a two-month round of elections at the end of December. Despite calls from separatist...
by Philo Ikonya - Kenya - On the 17th of December, a year after the country flared up in violence, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga signed an agreement as the first step in what is popularly...
by Aditi Bhaduri - India - It has been a momentous year for Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It began with the state government’s controversial transfer of land to the Hindu Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, and ended with the just concluded...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - After seeing the new documentary Flow, my 2009 New Year’s resolution is to stop buying bottled water. Over $100 billion is spent annually on bottled water, but it would cost only $30 billion to...
by Lesley D. Biswas - India - According to a 2006 National Crime Records Bureau report, 18 women become victims of crime every hour in India. The number of women raped every day has risen to 53 – a nearly...
by Saskia van Alphen - Argentina - The terrain of the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (the ESMA or Navy Mechanics School) has been open to the public for a year now. Once one of the biggest detention and torture...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - The recent history of Liberia is bloody. Valuable natural resources, corrupt leaders, ethnic conflicts, and thousands of displaced people led to 8 years of conflict during Liberia’s two civil wars (1989-1993 and 1999-2003). Many...
by Katharine Daniels Executive Editor, The WIP - USA - Though the USA has typically been a leader in women's rights, the policies of the Bush Administration have taken us backwards in terms of women's issues, especially policies regarding the...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - At the tender age of 19, Claudio Duran opened the door of his Santiago home in the middle of the night to find military secret police ready to arrest him. The officers took him...
by Natalie Hart - Chile - “Impunity for human rights crimes is not just a matter of the past, but also something that continues today.” - Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General On the tenth anniversary of former military dictator...
by Cheery Zahau - Burma / India - Burma has become well known to the world, not with good reason but for its worsening human rights violations perpetrated by the military junta ruling the country. According to Amnesty International, the...
by Parul Sharma - Sweden - As it is, love can either be a blessing or a poison, depending on various aspects. But when love is felt for someone of the same sex, in some cultures, that love becomes a...
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - As the world observed the International Day of the Disappeared last month on August 30th, Asima Mohi-ud-Din attended a silent protest rally organized by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). For...
by Julie Chowdhury - Sweden - Every morning when you wake up and perform what you may perceive as insignificant chores, you might not realize that for 2.6 billion people around the world, your morning shower or just one flush...
by Vera von Kreutzbruck - Germany - Even before Elite Squad was released commercially in October 2007, the hugely popular film about police violence and corruption in Rio de Janeiro was already a major success in Brazil. Eleven million Brazilians...
by Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - Kashmir’s ongoing armed conflict over the past two decades has had physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral consequences for everyone living in the valley. Although no official figures exist, everyone agrees there has been...
by Katharine Daniels & Sarah McGowan - USA - Sunday’s news that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn from the Zimbabwean runoff race spurred international media coverage and outrage on a crisis that has been raging for years. According to...
by Pilirani Semu-Banda - Malawi - Sixty-three year old Gladys Kasito, in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe, only has one wish – to die peacefully, preferably in her sleep. Kasito says she feels trapped and threatened in her own country. Her...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In the early hours of April 25th, Tariro Gweru and her husband Wellington awoke to a deafening knock on their bedroom hut. Wellington says he identified the frantic voices of his two friends, Simon...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - "The moment the people stop supporting you, that's the moment you should quit politics." These were the seemingly reasonable and even wise words President Robert Mugabe used in the Highfield suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe’s...
by Ellen Snortland - USA - Midnight. Intensely urban downtown neighborhood in Los Angeles where the alleys reek of urine and garbage. Dark Craftsman house in the Carpenter-Gothic style. My home. I cross the threshold and meet an interrupted burglar...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Tinashe Choruma and his wife Irene live in the suburb of Epworth here in the capital, Harare, where many of city's poor reside. The housing is poorly constructed - some homes are made from...
by Philo Ikonya - Kenya - The women of Kenya have always been aware of injustice in our society, all through the years. And they have fought for justice: in 1922 Mary Nyanjiru faced the colonialist’s gun fearlessly after stating...
by Philo Ikonya - Kenya - Dear Njeri, Tonight, I am unable to sleep. You see, my country - our country - is on fire. It is almost the end of February: is it the end of Kenya as we...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - On March 11th, 2007, 64 year old Sekai Holland woke up unusually early. She was restless and anxious because of the scheduled protests that her party was going to go ahead with against the...
by Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - There was chaos and pandemonium at Harare’s city center on January 23rd, as thousands of ordinary people came face-to-face with the wrath of the police’s riot squad, who were summoned by Zimbabwe’s aging President,...
by Neeta Lal - India - With a booming economy, an exponentially growing Information Technology (IT) sector and surging economic prosperity amongst its 300 million-plus middle class, India seems poised for superpower status. • Women in India are increasingly marginalized...
by Imelda V. Abaño - Philippines - At the December UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, experts and concerned people alike discussed how poor women in developing countries bear the brunt of climate change in a wide range of ways. They...
by Tess Raposas - Philippines - In coastal communities all over the Philippines, it is ironic that seawater is abundant everywhere but effectively, there’s not a drop of clean water to drink. But the problem exists throughout the country, and...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - “The stories we listened to made us bleed inside, the genital wounds we later had to help nurse evoked us, the long distances we traveled every day and night to educate girls on their...
by Michelle Chen USA "Rich men dam the water Flooding the hill rice field, causing problems for Mother Rich men dam the river Flooding the roof and making Mother homeless" • The lives of the Karen are threatened by Burma's...
by Imelda V. Abano Philippines When I visited a dumpsite last week to do a story about scavengers, I saw a group of children sifting through mountains of trash and asked: "What do you do when you're hungry?" They stared...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Most of us here in Zimbabwe thought he was joking when we first heard President Robert Mugabe tell the public that his government was going to "pounce on greedy businesspeople" because they were increasing...
by Imelda V. Abaño Philippines The bloody military crackdown in Burma (also known as Myanmar) was bound to happen. Some people called it "pure democracy" as hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters joined with 10,000 of the Buddhist monks the...
by Neeta Lal - India - Kaveri Nambiar, 25, a Brahmin woman from Chennai in southern India, married a farmer’s son in Punjab, up north, a few months ago. But rather than glowing with the happiness of newly married bliss,...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - As I write this piece, a soldier is in critical condition at the army hospital after residents from the notorious suburb, Mufakose attacked him and three of his colleagues for "harassing innocent civilians". It’s...
by Imelda V. Abaño Philippines • Women like this 70-year old landfill dweller in Baguio City must find water wherever they can. Photograph by Imelda V. Abaño. •For Edna Dela Cruz, water is life, but it's also backbreaking work. As...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - • Harare, Zimbabwe. Photograph by Gary Bembridge. •The recent passing of the Interception of Communication Act, signed into law by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe on August 3, 2007, has sparked much debate and inspired...
by Patricia Vásquez and Katharine Daniels The WIP On August 7, 2007, The WIP, in its Byline Portal, linked to an outstanding and shocking article, “The Black Sites: A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program” by Jane Mayer,...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Hopefully, readers may remember the piece I wrote for The WIP in May 2007 about prominent Zimbabwean playwright Cont Mhlanga, and the premiere of his most recent and controversial play yet, “The Good President.”...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In 2003, gender activists from the Zimbabwe Women Writers group published a book entitled A Tragedy of Lives: Women in Prison in Zimbabwe. It revealed shocking human rights abuses in the country’s prison system....
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - • A woman cries amongst her possessions. Photograph by Fidelis Zvomuya. •My conscience has not let me rest since I last visited the small mining town of Bindura, about 90 kilometers outside Harare, Zimbabwe’s...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - “When elephants fight, it is the grass which suffers.” – African Proverb The Zimbabwean government introduced an ambitious Antiretroviral Drugs (ARVs) program in 2004, but Ropafadzo Kondo, who tested HIV positive in 1999, got...
by Viktorija Plavcak Slovenia Two weeks ago in Celje, the third largest city in Slovenia, a fifty-year old man, barely able to drive himself to the hospital, walked into the ER in the middle of the night complaining about shortness...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - On March 30, 2007 Zimbabwean journalists here woke up to sad and disturbing news: Edward Chikomba, a former cameraman with the government-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (the country’s only television station), had been abducted from...