The past 25 years have witnessed fundamental sociopolitical and cultural changes in Sudan. Women have been the terrain of many of the uneasy shifts in the country, even down to their skin, which they are now being encouraged to bleach.
Security breakdown has wreaked havoc with women’s lives in Arab transition countries, but it is hardly recognized in international debates on gender based violence, says Mariz Tadros
Revolutions take time. The French Revolution was followed by years of terror and conflict before stability. Arab women have discovered through their revolutions that they can have a voice, and this, says Monique Villa, is the seed of hope for the future.
The interim nuclear deal between the western powers and Iran faces significant domestic and international challenges. But after long hostility it may prove a trust-building stepping-stone to a larger agreement.
Clearing sites of mass protest in Cairo and stamping them with symbolic representations of their preferred narrative of order and stability, the military authorities are striving to relegate the revolution to the past. Yet, these new cityscape makeovers continue to be contested.
A new group of secular intellectuals in India argues that the BJP’s real attitude towards women is based on a fascist communally-based politics in which women are seen not as individuals with rights, but as bearers of their community’s honour, to be protected or raped, depending who they are.
Who engineered the Congressional shutdown that imperilled the world economy? Meredith Tax looks at an alliance of three groups: big oilmen, Southern oligarchs, and Christian fundamentalists.
We need to say “enough!” to the leadership of people who foster oligarchy and treat Afghanistan as a playground for their selfish interests. The biggest battlefront is the election. Whatever change may happen, if women’s perspectives are not included, it will make no difference to the lives of wom
Pakistan has been locked in two key debates on the issue of peace recently. The first is whether there should be ‘peace talks’ with the Tehreeq e Taliban Pakistan. The second concerns Malala, the school-girl who survived the Taliban murder attack and was a nominee for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.
Amira Osman is awaiting trial for refusing to cover her hair. She is one of thousands of Sudanese women who are being arrested under Sudan's criminal code, sentenced, and publicly lashed.
There is no explicit reference to abortion in the Qur'an, and classical jurisprudence and modern-day religious scholarship highlight the diversity of Islamic thought on this subject. Naureen Shameen asks what the new antipathy to family planning by some of the Muslim majority countries means for t
With more fundamentalists predicted to win seats in the forthcoming election, the future is likely to see once again the use of religion as an instrument of extreme gender based oppression in Afghanistan. Will President Karzai use his remaining days in office to cement the foundations of women’s r
