by Meghan Lewis
-Cambodia-

An ancient Khmer proverb says, “A man is gold; a woman is a white piece of cloth.” Gold can get dirty or be dropped in the mud, but it can be polished and become as shiny as new; if white cloth is dropped in the mud, it will be forever stained, soiled, and ruined. This is a sad reflection of how Cambodian society traditionally views female sexuality. The silencing and shaming of female sexuality means that women often lack their sexual rights and autonomy.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
-France-

Résiste
Prouve que tu existes
Cherche ton bonheur partout, va,
Refuse ce monde égoïste
Résiste
Suis ton cœur qui insiste
Ce monde n’est pas le tien, viens,
Bats-toi, signe et persiste
Résiste

- Résiste, France Gall, 1981

Resist! Prove that you exist! ... Refuse this selfish world. … Fight, make your mark, and persist! came to my mind while I listened to yet another group of protesters hurl words of indignation at the pension reforms proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration this summer. These celebrated lyrics by France Gall, first broadcast in the early 80s, speak to the Gallic instinct of not accepting political change sitting down.

by Stephanie Koehler
-USA-

How many rapes will it take to bring to our consciousness the devastating consequences inflicted on both rape survivors and society? How many more rapes do we need to hear about to make this plague our own personal problem? The 2009 National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, reported approximately 79 percent of sexually assaulted women were attacked by a current or former husband, cohabitating partner, friend, or date. Strangers committed only 21 percent of the assaults counted in this survey.

According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. The same is true for about three percent of American men. Approximately 15 percent of sexual assault and rape victims in the U.S. are under age 12. These horrifying numbers only reflect a fraction of factual rapes as most go unreported. And in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the vast numbers of women affected by sexual assault defies accurate reporting.

by Tonopah Greenlee
-Singapore-

After college I moved to Sub-Saharan Africa for a year. During that time I learned a myriad of useful skills. I learned to kill a chicken and prepare a traditional meal. I mastered dancing like a “true African.” I could barter my way through any market. And I learned how to urinate in the open. In fact, I became so good at urinating in public I have since taken this skill with me to every major city I have visited that lacks adequate public restrooms or does not maintain the ones they have. I can say with the utmost confidence, I can pee like one of the boys.

But I never mastered, nor attempted, openly defecating. In truth, it was not something I spent much time thinking about until a few months ago when I came to work for the World Toilet Organization in Singapore. In many ways this is backwards. I lived in one of the poorest regions of the world where open defecation is a fact of everyday life, and never thought about it, only to move to one of the richest countries in the world where sanitation is at 100 percent, and I think about it every day.

by Eloisa Morra Pucacco
-Italy-

After the great battles of the Italian feminist movement in the 1970s – when fascist codes on “family law” were modified and women obtained the rights of divorce and abortion - it seems that today we are having a backlash. In Italy, as in many countries, women often study faster and with better results than men, yet at work they are paid less than their male colleagues. Violence against women is increasing. The current Italian government is not working to create laws against discrimination.

At the heart of what appears to be a backward trend is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns three private TV channels and many national newspapers. Every day Italian families absorb his vision of the world. Italian TV shows are filled with naked women in imagery similar to pornographic movies.

Despite this, a “new Italian feminism” is emerging. To understand what it means to be a woman in Italy, I find it useful to have an outside point of view. In “Notes on Visconti’s Bellissima,” a brilliant essay written in 2009, English novelist Zadie Smith writes, “In the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, in the ombra del colosseo, expats gather to complain. Italian women is a subject to stretch from morning coffee to midday ravioli. ‘The land that feminism forgot!’ And on cue it all rolls out like an index: the degrading sexualisation of, the nightly televisual humiliation of, Berlusconi's condescending opinion of, perilous abortion rights of, low wages of, minimal parliamentary presence of, invisibility within the church of, et cetera. Yet there exist confusing countersigns, in the land that feminism forgot.”

by Huma Yusuf
-Pakistan-

A few days after this summer’s flooding in Pakistan had gained momentum the phone calls began. The waters from the inundated valleys of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were now rushing towards the fertile plains of the Punjab. Foreign correspondents of several international news outlets based in Islamabad wanted to know how the flooding would impact counterterrorism efforts in the region. Would extremist organizations use the floods as an opportunity to infiltrate Pakistan’s rural areas? Would their religious rhetoric help give meaning to the calamity, thereby spurring recruitment among the rural poor?

I fumbled through answers to these questions, all the while transfixed by the disaster movie images on my television screen, and the soaring statistics about the number of people affected. In many exchanges with journalists, both domestic and foreign, I debated the risk posed by extremist groups who might try to exploit feelings of frustration and helplessness that would abound in flood-affected communities. But those discussions were half-hearted and distracted—I was more preoccupied by the humanitarian toll of the flooding than its impact on counterterrorism strategy.

by Alexandra Marie Daniels
-USA-

Can art change lives? Two artists, photographer Vik Muniz and filmmaker Lucy Walker, search for an answer by traveling to the largest landfill on the planet, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Out of poverty, desperation, and misfortune, a community of catadores - or garbage pickers - lives and works in the landfill plucking recyclable material from mountains of trash.

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

Zuhra is four and she has recently learned her Sindhi alphabet – 52 letters in all. She wants the world to know about her achievement. When I met Zuhra at the Indus Resource Centre’s (IRC) tent city for the flood affected in Dadu - a small town in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh - she tugged at my sleeve and insisted I listen to her recitation.

Data collected from IRC tent cities in Khairpur, Dadu, and Sehwan in Sindh provides an idea of how women fared the ravaging floods in July through September. Of the 8,089 people housed in these camps, 49 percent were females and 47 percent were children, indicating the prevalence of large family sizes and its implications for women.

by Cheery Zahau
-Burma/India/Thailand-

It is a critical time in my country’s history. The military junta, called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has ruled Burma since 1962 through violence and the severe repression of dissidents, ethnic armed-resistance groups, and pro-democracy leaders.

On Sunday, November 7, the SDPC will hold a general election, the first since 1990 when they rejected the result of National League for Democracy's (NLD) landslide victory and placed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi – a leader who has the potential to lead the country forward - under house arrest and unable to contest the elections.

At first glance, an election seems to offer new hope for the people of Burma who have been fighting for democracy for so long. Yet, while the authorities claim the elections will be free and fair, the political space is tightly controlled, and opponents of the ruling regime are routinely harassed, detained, tortured, and imprisoned.