Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/lea-bouchoucha/)
Léa Bouchoucha is a French journalist interested in multimedia storytelling and foreign affairs reporting with a particular focus on global politics, conflict, human and women's rights. She graduated with a degree in political science from Sorbonne University and in journalism from New York University.
The legislation under review eases the process of changing gender identification, but critics say it falls short of recommendations by the Council of Europe, an advisory body to the European Union.
This clinical team is known for its surgeries to repair the clitoris. But its services for survivors of FGM are much more. “We treat the whole mutilation with its emotional, social and psychologic impact,” says a pioneering surgeon.
The country is a magnet for female immigrants from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Guinea and Ethiopia. Thousands of women from these countries have fled FGM and help define what it means to be a refugee in Europe.
Her far-right party is well known for its anti-immigrant, nationalist message. In a country that serves as a beacon for abortion rights, she is also challenging that part of the status quo.
Run by Volunteers of America in Sacramento, this initiative joins a larger national effort helping vets find jobs and housing, decreasing some of the larger risks that these women face.
“It is catastrophic,” says one Muslim women’s leader, referring to the Nov. 13 attacks. “If we do not act on the causes of why they committed such horrors, we are not going to find the tools to stop them and to offer other alternatives.”
The VA has shifted its approach to ending homelessness among veterans. Now, a place to live–more than drug treatment or mental health counseling–is considered the starting point for helping a soldier who is struggling to cope with life after discharge.
Like so many female veterans, Rhiannon Duncan suffered parental sexual abuse as a child. For three years, the Army offered a way out. But then she ran into problems that led to her discharge and the start of a very tough chapter. The first of two stories.
Veterans’ need for services often don’t emerge until they’ve been discharged for a while, says a spokesperson with a poverty relief group. “It usually takes several years before he or she starts to reach a point of crisis.”
While in New York recently, Faheema reflected on what drew her to the longstanding but little-documented practice in Afghanistan of “bacha posh,” a Farsi expression meaning “dress up as boys.”