Marawi, Philippines — The road into Marawi City that snakes Lake Lanao is idyllic, surrounded by lush greenery endemic to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. But the dusty path leading to the...
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Sex Traffickers Target Teenage Girls in Nigeria’s IDP Camp
On a breezy evening in early January 2021, six teens — five girls and one boy — walked briskly behind Madame Joy as she led the way to a motor park to catch a night bus due to depart from Makurdi —...
Backlash Over New Mobile Health Initiative Exposes Digital Gender Divide in Pakistan
Karachi, Pakistan — The day in November 2020 that Shaista Bhatti, a 45-year-old Lady Health Worker (LHW) in Pakistan, fell ill, she had visited her younger sister, Shazia, who insisted on taking her...
India’s Women Frontline Community Health Care Workers Tracing COVID-19 Are Left Defenseless
Pune, India — After spending two weeks at a government COVID-19 care facility in Kolhapur — in the western Indian state of Maharashtra — Ashwini Patil, 35, had made a full recovery and was discharged...
Sexual Abuse Thrives in Nigeria’s IDP Camps with No Recourse for Victims
CONTRIBUTOR, JENNIFER UGWA Abuja, Nigeria — In January 2018, Pauline*, 23, fled her village in Tse-Usenda, Guma Local Government, Benue State after Fulani militant herders attacked her community. She...
Philippines + 1 more
Wives, Widows, and Mothers: The New Faces of Violent Extremism in the Philippines
On the last Sunday morning in January 2019, a homemade bomb pierced through the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, the capital of Sulu province in the southern Philippines. As parishioners...
The Silent Mental Health Crisis Among Women in Kashmir
Srinagar, Indian-Administered Kashmir --- On May 19, 2020, the city of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, awoke to a gunfight between the counter-insurgency grid of the Indian state...
Periods Don’t Stop During a Pandemic, But Supply of Hygiene Products in a Locked-Down Refugee Camp Does
It has been five months of lockdown for refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesbos, the center of the refugee crisis in Europe. While Greece began reopening in May — even welcoming tourists again —...
Amid Syria’s civil war, a rise in miscarriages among displaced women in the northeast
Updated at 2:02pm EST with information on the first COVID-19 case confirmed in Syria. Kobane, Syria—Miscarriages have surged among displaced women in northeastern Syria over the last several months,...
There can be no real accountability in Myanmar if women remain on the sidelines
For decades, ethnic women in Myanmar have documented acts of sexual violence committed against them in the hopes that, one day, perpetrators will be held accountable for their crimes. They had...
Maya Achi women demand justice for wartime sexualized violence in Guatemala
“We are women who have suffered. The culprits need to realize the harm they caused, the errors they committed,” said María*, one of 36 Maya Achi women who are bringing a case against soldiers who had...
Mass rape in Congo demands a more nuanced understanding than the cell phone in your pocket
When Dr. Denis Mukwege was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize last October, international attention was renewed to the "flamboyant brutality" of mass sexualized violence in eastern Democratic...
Women shoulder the burden of internal displacement in Mexico
Mexico City—“Every night she asks me, ‘Why are we sleeping out here on the ground and not in the palace?’” Doña Marisela Cástulo Guzmán said, gesturing to her seven-year-old daughter, Frida. Last...
How women are reconstructing their lives after the horrors of Boko Haram
Maiduguri, Nigeria—When Boko Haram militants captured the northeastern Nigerian town of Gwoza in August 2014, 45-year-old Amina Mohammed was still reeling from the loss of her husband. He’d died two...
World + 2 more
Yet again, the world is failing genocide victims
Today marks four years since ISIS launched their genocidal campaign against the Yezidi community in Sinjar. Since the initial attack in August 2014, thousands of Yezidi women and men have been...
The Nigerian schoolgirls helping trafficked women rebuild their lives
Maiduguri, Nigeria—When a group of women came to Maryam Muhammad and offered to pay for her trip from Maiduguri in Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to take part in the Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca,...
Learning ways to convict rapists in Kenya—other than by checking a survivor’s hymen
Over the years, Magistrate Judge Harrison Adika has heard more sexualized violence cases than he can count at courts in Nyeri and Kisumu in central Kenya. But Adika says many defendants facing such...
Afghan women will only be ‘empowered’ when they are free from violence
In Afghanistan, "economic empowerment” is a buzzword of the day, most frequently used by starry-eyed donors and development workers as they implement employment schemes, skill-development programs...
Attitudes shifting to include girls' education in African refugee settlements
If 19-year-old Rose Alek* could have one wish granted, it would be to complete her education. Following her parents’ death, Alek relocated from her home in South Sudan at the age of 6 with her...
Rape: A weapon of war with long-term consequences
Rahaf feared going home. Her clothes had been torn, making visible the painful red welts that would turn into eggplant-colored bruises. On her arms and legs, her family and fiance would be able to...