Women This Week: Around the World in 5
This ongoing series highlights women's news and information about foreign policy around women. This week’s post covers May 22 to May 27.
Uganda
Though Uganda's Computer Misuse Act prohibited offensive communication and cyber harassment—adding hate speech to the list in a 2022 amendment, a survey has further highlighted how common it is for women to be targeted online.
The research, led by the feminist tech collective Pollicy in 2020, found that 1 in 3 women between 18 and 65 years old have experienced gender-based online violence. A 2021 study found that this increased among women leaders and high-profile women, with 50 per cent experiencing trolling.
Read more here.
Cameroon
More than 30 women have been abducted by separatist rebels in the Northwestern village of Babanki, Cameroon. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the women were arrested for protesting illegal taxes imposed on them by the rebels, who have been forcing men, women, and children to submit monthly payments, with additional taxes for couples before marriage and a thousand-dollar charge to bury relatives.
Read more here.
Yemen
This week, BBC reported that 19 year old Mona travelled seven hours by camel to give birth.
In north-west Yemen's Mahweet province, Bani Saad hospital is the only surviving health facility for thousands of women. From Mona's house, in Al-Maaqara village, the facility can only be reached through mountains on camels or by foot.
According to Hicham Nahro of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Yemen, a woman dies every two hours during childbirth from preventable causes in Yemen.
Read more here.
Nigeria
The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has decried the marginalization of women in the defence and security sector while it tasked stakeholders to engage effectively in improving transparency and accountability within the sector.
Read more here.
Democratic Republic of Congo
This week, UN Special Representative, Pramila Patten, expressed her ‘deep concern’ over increasing allegations of sexual violence against women and girls being carried out in camps for the internally displaced (IDPs) around Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“More than 38,000 cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) were reported by UNICEF for all of 2022 in North Kivu alone. Humanitarian actors report they have provided assistance to over 600 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in six IDP camps over the course of two weeks in a volatile security environment. In most cases, survivors reported being attacked by armed men and displaced men in and around the camps,” she pointed out.
Read more here.