Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/suvendrini-kakuchi/)
Philippine migrant workers send half their wages back home and are the backbone of the nation’s economy. Now, activists are aiding the returning migrants to use the funds to create local businesses.
A new Tokyo museum presses the cause of the “comfort women” of World War II who were used as sex slaves by the Imperial Army. On Friday, Amnesty International renewed appeals to compensate the women and for Japan to issue them a fuller apology.
As aid workers in Sri Lanka consider the sad statistics left by the tsunami, they say that customs in poor, rural villages that tie women to a strict standard of modesty and caretaking were a major cause of death.
The aging women who suffered as sex slaves in Japan’s World War II army–so called comfort women–are still hoping for an official apology. As time runs out for many of them, activists are working to provide them with mental and physical care.
In Japan, fertility treatments are booming as more couples have trouble conceiving. Women’s activists say the trend puts more pressure on women in a culture that too often judges women by their ability to reproduce.
After leading politicians brushed off a gang-rape case in Tokyo, women’s rights activists took it as a cue to step up their criticism of what they regard as rampant sex-discrimination.
A Japanese organization is offering for the first time advocacy services for victims of sexual violence. In doing so, the group confronts a culture that inhibits women from talking about their abuse and a legal system that is lenient on rape.
Japanese feminists are encouraging the Diet to revise a civil law that requires couples to choose a single last name when they marry. Their proposal would allow women to keep their maiden names.
The number of single mothers in Japan is on the rise, as women reject traditional attitudes that insist children be raised by a mother and a father. In an apparent response, proposed legislation would reduce government-funded child support.