Free Aung San Suu Kyi

27 May 2009 in Asia, Campaign, Human Rights

Burma’s democracy leader and Nobel Peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been locked up on new trumped up charges, just days before her 13 years of detention was due to expire. She and thousands of fellow monks and students have been imprisoned for bravely challenging the brutal military regime with peaceful calls for [...]

Iryna Khalip of Belarus, Agnes Taile of Cameroon and Jila Baniyaghoob of Iran win Courage in Journalism Awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation

27 May 2009 in Awards or Nominations, Global, Media

Amira Hass of Israel is Lifetime Achievement Award winner A Belarusian journalist who is frequently detained and subjected to all-night interrogations by police, a Cameroonian radio journalist whose broadcasts on human rights and press freedom have put her life at risk and an Iranian journalist whose reports about sensitive social and political issues have led [...]

More to Trafficking Than Prostitution – debate at IOM

27 May 2009 in Europe, Prostitution, Trafficking

The condition of victims of forced labour worldwide may be unrecognised because many states and organisations see it only in the light of a fight against prostitution. The relation between prostitution and trafficking was one of the most controversial subjects debated at an international conference on trafficking called by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) [...]

Spain moves to ease abortion law

27 May 2009 in Abortion Contraception, Europe, Government

The Spanish government approved a plan Friday to ease its abortion law and allow the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, pressing ahead with a sweeping social reform agenda that has irked conservatives and the Catholic church. The proposal needs approval from Parliament, where Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero lacks [...]

Avalanche of Anti Abortion Laws in Mexico

27 May 2009 in Abortion Contraception, Legal Police, South America

In the last 13 months, 12 of Mexico’s 32 states have approved amendments to their state constitutions defining a fertilised human egg as a person with a right to legal protection, and seven other state parliaments are taking steps in the same direction. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say it is a massive conservative reaction to a [...]

More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time

27 May 2009 in Abortion Contraception, North America, Research

Also, fewer think abortion should be legal “under any circumstances” A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. [...]

Los Angeles City Council Approves Funds to Process Rape Kits

27 May 2009 in Legal Police, North America, Rape and Sexual Assault

The Los Angeles City Council voted Monday to approve funds to test the city’s enormous backlog of untested rape kits. Once the mayor approves the budget that authorizes these funds, up to 26 additional employees could be hired to process the kits and some testing could be outsourced to private labs, according to Human Rights [...]

Japan Under Pressure to Clamp Down on Child Pornography

27 May 2009 in Asia, Campaign, Children Parenting, North America, Pornography, Women's Group

Calls for government to ban RapeLay, a computer game where players can earn points for raping schoolgirls Japan has come under renewed pressure to clamp down on its huge market in child pornography following the launch of a campaign to ban a video game in which players earn points by raping schoolgirls and forcing them [...]

Women’s groups in Israel blast bill giving rabbinical courts more powers

27 May 2009 in Faith, Family Marriage Partnership, Government, Legal Police, Middle East

Women’s organizations and the Rabbinical Courts Administration squared off in the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women yesterday over a bill to expand the rabbinical courts’ authority. The proposal has not yet been formally submitted to the Knesset as a bill, since Justice Minister Yaakov Ne’eman is still studying it. However, the committee discussed [...]

Attempt to tackle rise in Europe’s ’honor crimes’

27 May 2009 in Europe, Faith, Family Marriage Partnership, Publication, Violence Against Women

A report prepared by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in an attempt to tackle the increasing rate of ’honor crimes’ across Europe says the problem has worsened in Europe and cooperation among countries is needed to deny safe harbor to guilty individuals As rates of “honor crimes” are on the rise throughout [...]

Women Sidelined By Military Regime in Fiji

27 May 2009 in Australasia, Equality, Government, War Conflict

Fiji, a multi-racial, multi-cultural country of 300 islands in the South Pacific, has undergone another coup – the fourth in 22 years. The women of Fiji want their voices to be heard as they work on ways to bring peace back to their country, and they are asking for the United Nations to support their [...]