Women’s News
September 8, 2016
The conflict in Myanmar, also known as Burma, is considered as one of the world’s longest-running conflicts. The conflict started when Myanmar’s ethnic groups took up arms in a struggle for self-determination or greater autonomy soon after the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the current Myanmar conflict has internally displaced 120,000 people in Rakhine State and 100,000 people in Kachin State. The UN humanitarian […]
September 7, 2016
Women have shouldered the brunt of the violent conflict in Syria. Virtually half of the Syrian internally displaced and refugees are women. Amidst the chaos brought about by the five-year-old conflict, Syrian women have risen in the local level as: Negotiators for securing local-level ceasefires and release of prisoners Distributors and monitors of humanitarian aid Organizers of safe spaces for women and children Documenters of human rights abuses In the article called “Leveraging leadership among Syrian women—a strong constituency for […]
September 6, 2016
The United Nations has welcomed the decision of the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, in overturning a French town’s ban on burkini. The Council of State, in its ruling, found that the burkini ban by the French town of Villeneuve-Loubet violated religious freedom and freedom of movement. France’s highest administrative court also found that public officials who enacted the ban had failed to prove that the burkini posed a threat to the public. While the Villeneuve-Loubet’s ban does […]
September 6, 2016
The photograph of Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old boy sitting in an ambulance chair with his face and body covered in dust and blood after being rescued from an airstrike, reminds the world yet again of the horrors faced by victims of the ongoing war in Syria. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) describes the ongoing war in Syria as “one of the most complex and dynamic humanitarian crises in the world today.” The Syrian war, […]
August 30, 2016
Africa has more women in leadership positions in both private and public sectors than the average worldwide, this according to the latest report by McKinsey & Company. African Women’s Participation in the Public Sector In the report called “Women Matter Africa,” McKinsey & Company showed the following rise of the number of African women in leadership positions in the public sector: From 2000 to 2014, the share of women parliamentarians almost doubled to reach 24%. In terms of women’s representation […]
August 29, 2016
The armed conflict between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dates back to the armed peasant movements in the early 1960s. Five decades after, the protracted armed conflict saw thousands of deaths, thousands of forced disappearances, and forced displacement of nearly 7 million Colombians. An estimated 3 million women have been forcibly displaced by the five-decade armed conflict. A significant number of women played a big part in the Colombian armed conflict as 40% […]