Humanitarian Organizations Must Involve Refugee Women in Planning Reproductive Health Programs

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–Rachel Girmus In 2009, the UN Refugee Agency reported that 21.8 million worldwide are “persons of concern;” these include refugees, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons, spread over 140 countries. Of these, 80% are women and children who fled their home countries due to conflict and human rights violations. Women are disproportionately affected by every … Read more

India’s Surrogacy Bloom

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I apologize if this story has already been posted (I checked the website but so much stuff gets posted that it’s hard to keep up). This story talks about how surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002, and how poor women become surrogate mothers to try to supplement their husband’s income.  Hundreds of women … Read more

Gender inequality in African American Intellectual Society (pdf attached)

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Anna Julia Cooper Public Intellectuals In this article, Carolyn M Cusick discusses the role of public intellectuals in society. Especially that of Anna Julia Cooper, a young woman born into slavery and recently appointed as teacher at the renowned M Street High School. Cusick focuses on the exclusion black female academics suffered from their male … Read more

Centuries old Nepal banishment ritual endangers girls and women

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This article discusses the Chhaupadi pratha a ritual practiced in Nepal.  This practice requires any women or girls that are menstruating or have recently had a child to be sent away to another home, found more among the more educated families, or put into a chhaupadi shed or hut where they are to remain  for up to … Read more

Stop Sex-Trafficking in Nigeria

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 –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