Our weekly selection of stories on women's rights from TrustLaw and other media
LONDON (TrustLaw) – Here is our selection of this week’s stories on women's rights from TrustLaw and other media.
AFRICA
Rwanda: New family-planning campaign targets single mothers
allAfrica.com
A family-planning campaign aiming to reduce birth rates among single mothers has been launched by an international organisation, Hope and Homes for Children (HHC). This is the same organisation that is partnering with the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion in re-integrating children from orphanages into their respective homes. An official with HHC, Innocent Habimfura, said that single motherhood has in the past heavily contributed to child abandonment.
Pregnant Muslim women and their healthcare in Burundi
allAfrica.com
Muslims make up 13 percent of the population in Burundi ... Muslim women in the country are struggling when it comes to healthcare. They say their faith forbids them from being treated by a male doctor.
AMERICAS
Colombia: Flower workers struggle to keep pace with growing industry
TrustLaw, Colombia
Female workers - who constitute about 65 percent of the flower industry's workforce - are often forced to work in precarious labour conditions that threaten their health and put at risk their lives and those of their children.
ASIA
INTERVIEW-Conservatism, cost make female condoms a turn-off in India
TrustLaw, India
Conservative views about sex, high cost and poor awareness are hindering the use of the female condom in India despite its introduction two decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading condom makers said on Wednesday, marking the first international day to promote the contraceptive.
India's "rape capital" plans fast-track courts for sex crimes
TrustLaw, India
New Delhi plans to set up fast-track courts to deal more effectively with cases of sexual violence in a city which has become known as India's "rape capital" due to the increasing attacks on women, the Hindustan Times reported.
Women in prison fare better in China
The New York Times
Shackling during childbirth? Wang Jinling sounds horrified when asked whether it happens in Chinese prisons, as it does in prisons in the United States. “Really!” said Ms. Wang, one of China’s leading researchers on women in prison, in a telephone interview from Hangzhou, where she heads the Institute of Sociology at the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences. “That’s just very, ah, very cruel. I’ve actually never heard of shackling a woman who is giving birth. It’s not done here. Well, America can learn from China on this.” Others agree, such as John Kamm, the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, an advocacy group pushing for human rights improvements in China. How women are treated in prison is a neglected topic worldwide, but fast-growing female prison populations mean that governments and international organisations must address the problem, said Kamm.
EUROPE
Q+A-How well is Britain tackling human trafficking?
TrustLaw, UK
The UK needs to do more to raise awareness about the risk of British children being trafficked abroad, a report by the Council of Europe says. Experts from the European human rights watchdog have also expressed concern about children trafficked to the UK going missing from local authority care and cases of trafficking victims being arrested, prosecuted and convicted for immigration offences.
The Economist, UK
The pay-gap debate has long centred on the premise that although matters have improved since the 1960s, women still earn less than men doing the same work. The economics of this claim are most dubious.
MIDDLE EAST
Q+A with HRW’s Christoph Wilke on Saudi women’s rights
Middle East Voices/VOA News
Recently, the Saudi Industrial Property Authority – or MODUN – announced it was building a number of industrial cities which will include women-only business sectors. This would allow women to work without violating strict religious laws on gender mixing. The announcement has generated some controversy. Some see it as an attempt to empower women, while others say it is merely a move to further segregate women in Saudi Arabia’s male-dominated society.
Christoph Wilcke, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division for Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, discusses the subject of Saudi women’s rights in a Q+A.
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