Carolina Fonseca Somalia is a small country in East Africa where female genital mutilation is widespread and consists of the most severe form of female circumcision. This violent act of removing the clitoris, or parts of it, has grown to be a public health issue because the practice has severe physical and mental health consequences … Read more
This article examines how public toilets and latrines in slums in Kenya are not only hazardous due to their unsanitary conditions, but also because the women who use them are very often raped in the process. Many times women go to use the facilities and are attacked and raped, often brutally and by multiple offenders. … Read more
http://thestir.cafemom.com/teen/118256/father_beheads_daughters_rapist_hero
–Leila McInnis Hundreds of thousands of women are taken from their homes every year and forced to have sex for money. Sex-trafficking is defined by the US State Department as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for sexual exploitation through the use of fraud, force, or coercion” (Strege, 2008:98). There are … Read more
This article from Women’s E-News discusses the rise of the strip club industry in Kenya. Although the practice is illegal, owners circumvent the laws by registering the businesses as bars. Interestingly, there is a comment saying that they want their patrons to feel “like they feel in Atlanta”. From my standpoint, the strip club industry … Read more
Even though men and women equally participated in the revolution of overthrowing Mubarak, women are not being represented in the transitional process. No women are on the constitutional drafting team, and there are not any women assigned as cabinet ministers. This is very important because this will lead to having the interests of women ignored … Read more
This article offers a new twist on insight into the problem with rampant maternal/infant mortality rates in Kenya, Africa. While disease and lack of access to proper medical care contributes to these problems, the issue of access to clean water is often overlooked. The article cites that out of 160 hospitals in the country, around … Read more
If you are hearing the news about increasing food prices, now is a good time to think about how women can be the solution rather than the problem, as the book Half the Sky claims: Bias Against Female Farmers Shrinks Food Harvests What do you think? Would global gender equality in agriculture potentially offset these intermittent … Read more
Girls who desire to finish their schooling usually have to live far away from their villages and families in cheap huts called ghettos. The ghettos are buildings without electricity, water, and security for the girls living in them. This has made the girls a prime target for men who want to rape them. It is … Read more
It is interesting to read the previous post about women feeling empowered in Egypt now in their everyday lives. And really interesting link between sexual harrassment and political frustraction. But what about at the larger “public” levels of society? See this article: women’s organizations are already protesting getting left out of scripting the new constitution–and not … Read more