The Best Place To Be a Woman: A Conversation With Monique Villa
Canada is the best place to be a woman, and India is the worst according to a new poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation. The legal news service launched a global poll of experts this week ranking countries for women in the G20, putting the US, which “polarised opinion due to issues surrounding reproductive rights and affordable healthcare,” in sixth place. Access to healthcare...
1971 Rapes: Bangladesh Cannot Hide History
The post- Liberation War generation of Bangladesh know stories from 1971 all too well. Our families are framed and bound by the history of this war. What Bangladeshi family has not been touched by the passion, famine, murders and blood that gave birth to a new nation as it seceded from Pakistan? Bangladesh was one...
Saudi Arabia Allows Women in Olympics, But Will Any Qualify?
For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, women from all competing countries will be offered an opportunity to take part in the international event. That's because the Saudi Arabia government announced yesterday, through its London embassy, that it will permit female athletes to join its team at the 2012 London Games,...
Rio Disappoints on Women’s Rights
I could go on. But if you’ve seen any of the news on the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, you know it did not live up to the hype. Ask anyone from any sector--oceans, food security, education, energy--and they will all express disappointment. But for those of us advancing the sexual and reproductive rights...
Women of Color, the Wage Gap and the Paycheck Fairness Act
The average American woman earns only $0.77 to every full dollar that the average American man earns. What do statistics fail to capture about the lives of women of color? A Black woman in the US earns only $0.62 to every full dollar that a white man in the U.S earns. A Hispanic woman earns...
Mother’s Day: A Matter of Life & Death
As a Bangladeshi woman, I could not have felt more fortunate when I decided to give birth in America. It was a natural choice for my American husband and I. After almost a decade working to ensure US foreign policy protects women’s reproductive health and rights, I was well-aware that every year, approximately 529,000 women and girls...
Wrap It Up India: The Time Is Now For Family Planning
According to “Condom Use Before Marriage and Its Correlates: Evidence from India,” a study published in the December issue of International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, the majority of people in India having premarital sex between the ages of 15 and 24 did not use condoms. Authors K.G. Santhya, Rajib Acharya and Shireen J....
Should Catholic Bishops Have The Right To Control Your Life?
By Janet Hill, Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), National CLUW Vice President (United Steelworkers) Catholic bishops are pressuring the Obama administration to dilute the rule proposed by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow women access to birth control without paying out of pocket. There is a narrow exemption that allows religious...
Does China Have the Solution for the Population Crisis? Not Even Close
by Meghan Yee On October 31, the world population reached 7 billion. According to one Chinese demographer, however, if not for China’s one-child policy, the world population would have hit that number five years ago. China has the largest population on earth with 1.4 billion people. However, since 1979, the National Population and Family Planning...
The Women of “Women, War and Peace”
By Michele Kort The remarkable five-part PBS series Women, War and Peace concludes on tonight (Tuesday, November 8th) with War Redefined, the capstone piece that brings together the issues brought up in the previous films about conflicts in Afghanistan, Colombia, Liberia and Bosnia. Narrated by Geena Davis, the film touches on, among other things,...
The Staggering Facts of Seven Billion
We humans mark a milestone today—the world’s population reaches 7 billion. When I was born there were about 2.2 billion people on earth. When my assistant was born there were a little more than 5 billion people on earth. It took just 12 years to go from 6 billion to 7. As the population climbs...
Reflections on a Population Surging Beyond 7 Billion
6,998,460,833: the world’s current population, according to an estimate by Population Action International (PAI). In anticipation of October 31st, the day the world’s population is predicated to reach 7 billion, I’ve sat at my desk transfixed by PAI’s scrolling ticker, documenting the rapidly increasing population as it approaches a number troubling to reproductive rights activists,...
