Plans by the government to criminalise forced marriage in the UK will put women and girls at even greater risk of violence. Forced marriages can only be tackled from within and by the community, with sufficient resources to support this work, says Sajda Mughal
A naval base being built on Jeju Island threatens to destroy the livelihoods of the iconic women shellfish divers and raise levels of rape and prostitution in the surrounding villages. On her return from Jeju, Rebecca Johnson says international action is needed to stop the military construction
Time and time again I hear from refugee women that they want to work and contribute to British society. A dignified asylum system would be a positive asset; we cannot create an inclusive and cohesive society while we create this subset of excluded, marginalised and desperate individuals, says Nata
A conversation exploring the challenges posed by the international conjuncture following the “war on terror” for gender justice and women’s rights. Part one
Islamic militancy in Pakistan appears to be mobilising women suicide bombers as part of its religious trope. This trend unsettles the conservative divide between the public and private roles of women in traditional societies, and also attracts an anthropological defense of Islamist women's agency.
The SlutWalk protests came to London last Saturday, as part of a global show of solidarity challenging a 'rape culture' that holds sexual assault survivors partly responsible for crimes against them
"I was 12 years old.....my anguish ended when my family left Okinawa after this man had paid me $5 during our last encounter for my ‘services’," Betsy Kawamura
Many commentators have dismissed the French ban on wearing the niqab as a xenophobic reaction, writes Marie Gilbert. Hinging on French understandings about state, religion and women, the debate is in fact more sophisticated. It deserves to be heard rather than caricatured
"Egyptian women are lucky in one way. They have witnessed the predicament of Iranian women and seen how the Islamic state has hijacked the Iranian revolution, changed the laws and reversed women’s gains. My advice to Egyptian women is “do not give way to a government that would force you to choose
The debates triggered by a 14-fold increase in violent crimes against women in Turkey in the last seven years have pitted Islamic male scholars and journalists against Islamic women writers, reports Sertaç Sehlikoğlu
That the guardians of women's virtue should present a direct threat to it, encapsulates the essential paradox of popular opinion about the Taliban movement in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, says Sana Haroon.
Based on her fieldwork research on Filipinas in the sex industries in Japan, the author examines the traps and contradictions government regulators encounter in their attempt to control trafficking