Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/theresa-braine/)
Investigative journalists with TV station KHOU-Houston started with a tip about Texas National Guard officers publicly degrading a lower-ranking woman. That led to a wider story of abuse that has earned numerous national awards.
A Saudi academic and a Moroccan politician outline what Arab women need. The list includes more translations of Western research to overcome regional isolation and longer careers. The academic also says women everywhere are facing a “happiness gender gap.”
Survivors of human trafficking spoke at the U.N. recently as part of a new institutional effort to have their input on policymaking. Panelists said a major problem was not being seen as trafficking victims when they suffered their ordeals.
“To allow this to continue belittles the whole of humanity.” That was the comment of one visitor at the U.N. opening of a touring photo exhibit about women who face gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A reporter’s run-in with bedbugs forces her to inspect or clean every single one of her possessions. A box of childhood keepsakes–from Gloria Steinem’s autograph to Suzy Homemaker toys–reflects on the contradictions of a U.S. girlhood spanning the ’60 and ’70s.
Women the world over lose out financially in divorce, say custodians of the U.N. treaty on women’s rights. That’s why they are reviewing what CEDAW says on the matter, with a new general recommendation expected next year.
Some of the nations that have signed a U.N. convention to end discrimination against women are in New York and facing compliance review. At least two of the developed countries on the list–Japan and Switzerland–have room for improvement.
The U.N. visitors’ lobby is showcasing some of its female peacekeepers through Aug. 4. India has deployed a 125-member female police contingent to Liberia, but women are otherwise scarce in peacekeeping operations.
At the only degreed midwifery program in Mexico, women train and then return to their rural roots. It is right in line with a recent United Nations push to fill a global shortfall of 334,000 midwives and improve maternal health outcomes.
Female voters may have clinched the presidency for Barack Obama, but women’s rights groups say this is no time to rest on laurels. As soon as the polls closed, they were already pressing to move a women’s agenda forward and get to work.