by Kate Hughes -UK- Ten years ago, Afghan women were promised a bright future. After decades of civil war, and repressive Taliban rule, they entered a new era in which they were once again able to work, send their daughters...
by Vera von Kreutzbruck - Germany - Howl, a biopic centered on beatnik Allen Ginsberg’s seminal poem and the resulting obscenity trial, was the most moving and intellectually engaging film presented at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival....
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 Nusrat Ara - Indian-administered Kashmir - After the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted to a major mistake in its 2007 report, which asserted the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, skeptics and opponents alike went on...
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 Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan/USA - Today Afghanistan finds itself in a state of collapse and at the center of a powerful network of global terrorism. Kabul is a city filled with anxiety, insecurity, instability, trauma, and uncertainty; lost souls...
by Mandy Van Deven - India - During the year she taught Russian literature at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Arizona University professor Adele Barker found herself more comfortable in the role of perpetual learner than educator....
by Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan - While reports of systemic corruption and fraud are just beginning to surface in the international press as Western governments are becoming aware of it, this is old news to local Afghans. They know that...
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 Wazhmah Osman - Afghanistan/USA - I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan during the good years, in the early seventies. Among my fondest memories is walking to and from school holding the hand of my stylish mother who was then...
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 Aditi Bhaduri - India - As US President Barack Obama commits a troops increase in Afghanistan and a recognition of the “good Taliban,” and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paves the way for India’s nuclear energy program, many...
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 Priyanka Bhardwaj - India - At the insistence of the United States, India has been granted global “nuclear exception” status despite being a non-signatory on nuclear non-proliferation treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban...
by Natasha Dokovska - Macedonia - "I have 15 years seniority over the human resources officer and the highest level of education. Eight years ago, I was the head of the department, but in the last two years I have...
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 Mandy Van Deven - India - What do former U.S. Senator Larry Craig, women in Victorian England, and transgender activists have in common? Toilets!...
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 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 Shreyasi Singh - India - The UNDP’s Human Development Indices 2008 gives India a rather embarrassing rank in its crucial Gender Development Index (116th out of 157 countries). But, for many of us tracking politics in India today, the...
by Charukesi Ramadurai - India - “First day in Parliament. From the sublime (the historic Central Hall for the Cong legislators meeting) to the bureacratic (8 forms to fill)!” - 12:17 AM May 19th from TwitterBerry One of India’s newest...
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 Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - It has been a year since I last wrote for The WIP and it’s really good to be able to share what has been happening in our country. Every weekend for the past eight...
by Abigail Wendle - USA - When Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president in 2004, the new government established a constitution that proclaimed equality for men and women, promising to enforce international standards of human rights. But throughout...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - American Idol in Afghanistan? Seriously? Afghanistan’s first competition/reality show, Afghan Star, is arguably the most popular – and controversial – television program in Afghanistan. Eleven million people, or one-third of the country, tuned in...
by Patricia DeGennaro - USA - This year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday. President Obama will take his first European trip since the presidential campaign to meet NATO’s twenty-six members. While there, he’ll have to pinch...
by Nusrat Ara - Indian-administered Kashmir - “Keep Guns Outside, Please.” The brightly-colored sign on the gates of She Hope Disability Centre is a reminder of Kashmir’s ongoing conflict. Sami Wani, the young manager, smiles when asked about the instruction....
by Rosemary Okello - Kenya - In the face of escalating of sexual violence in Kenya, women with disabilities are more vulnerable than ever. A recent study by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-K) - a women’s rights...
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 Handan T. Satiroglu - Turkey / Western Europe - Not too far from the Baroque palaces and Gothic cathedrals that made the city of Vienna famous, a group of jubilant men and women are packed into a café. Glasses...
by Zubeida Mustafa - Pakistan - Peace activists in Pakistan and India are attempting desperately to be heard above the din raised by warmongers – elitist by all counts and claiming to be patriotic as well – in the wake...
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 Kavita Bedford - Australia - Those seeking insight into the Chilean mentality should explore the footpaths of Santiago and Valparaíso. The desires, fantasies and messages of the last forty years are boldly expressed on walls, metro stations and buildings....
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 Jessica Mosby - USA - United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made nineteen trips to the Middle East in the last two years in hopes of securing a regional peace accord. But as the Bush administration comes...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - I vividly remember the 1988 presidential election, or more accurately the months of campaigning that led up to the election. At the time, my family did not have cable television and all that was...
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 Afsaana Rashid - Indian-administered Kashmir - At a time when it is very difficult to find people willing to extend the hand of human kindness to those practicing a different religion, Muslims living in the Kashmir valley have set...
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 Shenali Waduge - Sri Lanka - At only a year old, would a child know that she was in front of a cake attempting to blow out something called a candle? When my daughter turned one she was pretty...
by Lijia Zhang - China Sundown left a trail of blood-red clouds in the western sky, yet evening offered no respite from the burning heat. With the plum rain season at an end Nanjing renewed its reputation as one of...
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 Lijia Zhang - China - Since the reform and opening up, a handful of young people have begun to worship capitalism,” preached political instructor Wang Aimin, the ideologue-in-chief of our unit, spittle flying over his notes and out into...
by Lijia Zhang - China - CLICK, CLACK, CLICK, CLACK ... When the percussive tap sounded from the corridor outside I was instantly alert. Soon, the source arrived in the doorway and walked into the workshop. “Masters, have you all...
by Lijia Zhang - China - For ten years, I worked in a missile factory on the banks of the Yangtze River. Although I grew up in the residential compound of my mother’s factory, and all my friends were the...
by Mridu Khullar - India - • Tibetan writers are using literature and new languages, Chinese and English, to share information about Tibet's struggle for freedom with a wider audience. Photograph by Sirensongs. •With the 2008 Olympics in China beginning...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Neil Young does not mince words. During his Freedom of Speech 2006 tour with on-again-off-again band mates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, the group energetically performed Young’s new songs titled, “Let’s Impeach...
by Remi Adeoye - Nigeria - There is stiff opposition to the proposed Niger Delta Summit slated to be held in Abuja, Nigeria. The Delta’s most prominent militant group, known as The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Paying upwards of $10 USD to see a movie about economics, particularly in these increasingly desperate financial times, hardly seems like a prudent decision – much less a pleasurable way to spend a Sunday...
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 Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - Always faithful in shocking the world, Zimbabwe has scored yet another first, and as usual, for all the wrong reasons. • Basket case: A fruit seller in Harare hunts for change. •It seems that...
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 Vera von Kreutzbruck - Germany - Andrzej Wajda was 13 years old when World War II broke out. Together with his mother he lived most of his life in the vain hope that his father might have survived the...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - “Rape has always been used as a weapon of war” is the opening line of the new documentary film The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo. For 76 minutes the film exposes the incredibly...
by Eva Sohlman - Sweden - What kind of leader does tomorrow’s America need? And who among the presidential candidates is best suited to meet the challenges that the next leader of the world’s superpower will face? These are some...
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 Nancy Van Ness - USA - In a heap on the studio floor as though they had collapsed under some disaster, fallen birds present a scene of despair. I am drawn toward them. They are a very powerful artistic...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - - March 8th - Today we celebrate International Women's Day with our sisters and mothers, aunts and grandmothers, cousins and daughters, and most of all, with our writers, who have become family. On this...
by Rose-Anne Clermont - Germany - “Love one another but make not a bond of love: Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. . . Stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple...
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 Rose-Anne Clermont - Germany - January 30th marks the 75th "anniversary" of Hitler's rise to power. Today, appropriately, we begin a nine-part series by Rose-Anne Clermont conceived as "Parallel Histories from Different Worlds." The series begins with the early...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In my last article I wrote that the situation here is so dire that many Zimbabweans, including myself, can now only pray for divine intervention to rid us of this dictator, Robert Mugabe. Based...
by Jessica Mosby - USA - Though the United States is a country of immigrants, immigration divides the culture and fuels an endless debate clouded by strong emotion on both sides. Over 11.3 million people are living illegally in the...
by Neeta Lal - India - While Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has rudely jolted Pakistan – a country already torn asunder by political instability and terrorism – it has also had a strong resonance across all of Asia especially in...
by Eva Sohlman - Sweden - Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America’s most prominent and provocative intellectuals. Unabashedly, he has always spoken up for what he calls “the fight for truth and beauty” making...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - In Zimbabwe 2007 closed on a very sad note. December was a very eventful month: it was President Mugabe’s busiest and most desperate month, as he fought to stamp out the criticism of his...
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 Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany • Hamburg boasts pint-sized anti-Nazi graffiti. Photograph by Photocapy. •The prominent German talk show host, Eva Herman, has been in the eye of the storm ever since she praised Hitler’s promotion of motherhood in a...
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 Lelety Mabasa Zimbabwe Vongai stumbles into the house and fumbles as she pulls her room key from her bra. After she struggles with the lock for several minutes, the door finally creaks open. She slips into the room, trying...
by Jessica Mosby USA In an admirable effort to contribute to the dialogue on what to do to save the planet, Leonardo DiCaprio has recently released a documentary film, The 11th Hour, which he produced and narrates. However, if you...
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 Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany/Argentina • Sept 12 - Austria: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner meets with Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. •Unless there is a dramatic and highly improbable last-minute shift in the voter polls, the 28th of October will prove...
by Imelda V. Abaño Philippines • Anti-Estrada protestors in 2001. Photograph by Imelda V. Abaño. •"It is a political decision…I am innocent!" cried the 70-year-old already ousted Philippine President Joseph Estrada after he was convicted of corruption on a massive...
by Jessica Mosby USA • Image courtesy of IFC •The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” To date, some 200,000 people have...
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 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 Lelety Mabasa - Zimbabwe - Reeling under severe economic hardships which have earned it the world's highest monthly inflation rate, Zimbabwe is to be dealt yet another blow as far as foreign investment is concerned. The impending disaster will...
by Vera von Kreutzbruck Germany The next president of the United States of America will undoubtedly play a major role in the international arena – as all US presidents have in past decades. But the important question is how much...
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...
by D-L Nelson France Geneva, Switzerland - “The chair is back,” Geneva residents are saying to each other. The Broken ChairThey are referring to a 12-meter (39-foot) wooden chair that stands between spouting fountains at the recently renovated Place des...
by Imelda Abaño Philippines On May 14, 2007, as the Philippines is scheduled for national elections. For this year's general mid-term elections, 87,000 candidates are running for 17,000 national and local positions, which include all of the 250 seats in...
by Constance Manika - Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean theatre lovers have had something to talk about for the past two weeks. Cont Mhlanga's riveting new play, The Good President, premiered here in Harare, Zimbabwe, on April 12. This politically charged satire,...