Women

When I first came across Mona Eltahawy’s article, questioning “Why do they hate us?”–“they” being the misogynistic rulers of Middle Eastern and Muslim nations, and “us” being the female population–I have to say my instant reaction was one of apprehensive agreement. Apprehensive, because I’ve seen womenfolk suffer cruel injustice in my part of the world […]

In Part I of this blog I set the scene for the challenges ahead as societies continue to travel along the demographic highway. In this second installment I look at the novel solutions trying to add color to a greying democracy. In a letter to the The Economist in January 2011, Reiko Aoki, Director of […]

Whilst ‘growing up’ is admirable and desirable, ‘getting old’ is often framed in a more negative light. What words come to mind when you think about the elderly? Frailty, weakness, health problems? A burden to society? Or rather politically engaged, motivated and experienced? It is now these latter qualities that are a cause for concern […]

If you have not read Mona Eltahawy’s article, “Why Do They Hate Us?” published in the new edition of Foreign Policy – go do it now. Maybe the Aztec prophecy that the end of the world is nigh is encouraging people to speak up, maybe enough is simply enough; whatever the reason, this week sees […]

image lifted from http://cdnnews.onepakistan.com Pakistan and the United States of America may seem like polar opposites, but when you push aside the semantics, you’ll find the same people everywhere: insecure, intolerant, injudicious and irrational. In Pakistan: The Domestic Violence Bill was first proposed in the Senate in 2009 and has since been lying dormant and the […]

When it comes to the Vatican, all eyes recently have been on Pope Benedict XVI’s tour to Mexico and Cuba, and the adulation that followed. In his Easter vigil mass he noted that “Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible…With regard to material things, […]

The month of March is one of ups and downs – we should beware the Ides but then cut loose on St Patrick’s Day; remember victims of slavery and detained/missing UN staff members – and also celebrate women, women’s achievements and progress. Women Deliver, an NGO working globally to generate political commitment and financial investment […]

  Last year, a girl named Amina El-Filali was raped in her town of Larache, Morocco, where her parents filed a criminal complaint. The case was taken to court where, in accordance with Article 475 of the Penal Code the judge ordered the rapist to marry his victim, thereby absolving him of his crime. Since Amina […]

Last year, I traveled to Swaziland, a country roughly the size of New Jersey surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique. Swaziland has about 1 million people, and has the unfortunate distinction of having the world’s highest rate of HIV/AIDS, 25.9%, and therefore a life expectancy of 48 years of age. I met an amazing cross […]

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women – shortened to CEDAW – celebrates its 31st birthday in September 2012 (counting from when it entered into force). If you happen to be in New York City before March 2012, you have the opportunity to experience ‘international law as art’ at Croatian […]

Things have gone from bad to worse for Egyptian civil society since I last blogged about the bleak short term outlook for the sector back in October. This week, the government shut down the Cairo offices of seventeen international human rights and pro-democracy NGOs, which the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has accused of […]

The field of foreign policy has been described as a ‘city of men’- but as can be imagined, it is not the only discipline where a gender imbalance has been noticed. I asked Patricia Moser, President and one of the founders of WIIS Switzerland, about the situation with respect to international security and security studies. […]