News & Current Affairs

Around The World in 5

By Hillary Essien | Jun 12, 2022

This week, Women fight for theirs across the world. 

 

  • Lebanon

A report by human rights organisation Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) has provided fresh evidence of systematic violence against Lebanese and Palestinian women and girls by government forces and militias during the 15-year war, which began in 1975. 

An amnesty law passed in 1991 granted immunity for crimes committed against civilians during the war which, the report notes, has enabled a culture of impunity and lack of accountability.  

Read the report here

  • Mexico

As the United States clamps down on abortion and reproductive rights, members of 30 different abortion rights groups, from across Mexico and the United States, formed the Red Transfronteriza, or Cross-Border Network.

The group is tasked with guiding women through the World Health Organization’s protocol for safely using abortion pills without the supervision of a doctor. They also supply abortion pills to Americans for nothing, mailing donated medications to the United States.

Read more here.

 

  • Nepal

A woman’s account on TikTok of being drugged, raped and then blackmailed by a beauty pageant organizer when she was 16 years old has provoked outrage in Nepal and prompted calls to reform the country’s “grossly inadequate” rape laws. 

Hundred of protesters took to the streets calling for change to the country’s rape laws, and six lawyers filed a petition at the supreme court demanding the repeal of the statute.

Read more here.

 

  • Thailand

After 15 years, the LGBT community in Thailand is optimistic as Pride parades return to Bangkok. This is in light of Thailand’s absent laws on marriage equality, gender recognition laws, which say affects anything from access to loans to the ability to travel or adopt children. Trans students are forced to dress according to the sex they were assigned at birth in school, including by cutting their hair to the length deemed appropriate for either boys or girls. 

Read more here.

 

  • Argentina 

According to the Women's Office of the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice, an average of one femicide was recorded every 35 hours in the country last year, with 81 per cent of those killed classified as victims of domestic violence.

Protests saw thousands of people march against femicide and gender violence in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Friday, as part of a movement now in its seventh year called Ni Una Menos, or "Not One Woman Less." 

Read more here

 

 

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