A bill in the Bahamian legislature that would criminalize marital rape has sparked public debate. The lawmaker who drafted the bill, Minister of State for Social Development Loretta Butler-Turner, says the bill would combat attitudes about spousal relationships that leave women vulnerable to abuse, reports the Associated Press. Currently, charges of rape can only be […]
An Oklahoma judge yesterday overturned a state law requiring women seeking abortions must first receive an ultrasound and a description of the fetus from a doctor. Oklahoma County District Judge Vicki Robertson ruled that the law, which includes multiple provisions, violates the state’s constitutional directive limiting a law to only one, reports the Associated Press. […]
New York Governor David Paterson promised a group of protesters yesterday that he will sign a bill that will prohibit incarcerated pregnant women from being shackled while in labor. Dozens of women, several of whom have given birth while shackled in prison, gathered outside of Paterson’s office wearing handcuffs to demonstrate support of the legislation. […]
The Danish Conservative Party is proposing to ban burqa and niqab attire as part of an integration initiative. The burqa is a head-to-toe garment worn by some Islamic women and the niqab is a similar garment that has an opening for the eyes. Conservative party officials have criticized the attire as being oppressive towards women […]
Lawyers representing the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa withdrew special defenses Monday in a lawsuit involving a woman who was raped at gunpoint in the hotel’s parking garage in front of her children. In court documents, the hotel originally argued that the woman was negligent and “failed to exercise due care for her own safety […]
The participation of many Afghan women in Thursday’s elections is threatened by strict polling regulations and fraud. A severe shortage of female workers to staff women-only polling places will limit the ability of millions of women cast their ballots, reports the Independent UK. The country’s Independent Election Commission says it needs 13,000 additional women to […]
Human Rights Watch released a report yesterday that indicates hundreds of Iraqi gay men have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered since the beginning of 2009. The report claims that Iraqi authorities have not acted to stop militias that are actively targeting men suspected of engaging in homosexual conduct and may be complicit in some attacks. […]
A poll released Saturday by CBS and the New York Times indicates that just 53 percent of American adults support military women serving in combat roles. The poll also found 83 percent support women serving in support roles for ground troops, according to CBS. The United States currently restricts women from direct combat roles in […]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced yesterday that he will appoint at least three women to his cabinet. According to Agence France Presse, Fatemeh Ajorlou will be appointed as social welfare minister, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as health minister, and a third currently unidentified woman will be appointed to a third minister position. If approved, these appointees […]
Iranian authorities allowed Esha Momeni, an American graduate student and feminist activist who was imprisoned and then detained by the Iranian government, to return to the US yesterday. Momeni’s passport had been confiscated by the Iranian government after her release from the notorious Evin prison in November 2008. Women’s rights activists and journalists Shadi Sadr […]
The controversial Shia family law, with some revisions, that restricts the rights of Shia women in Afghanistan was published in the country’s official Gazette on July 27th, making the law’s provisions official. The law applies only to Afghanistan’s 10-20 percent Shia minority. President Hamid Karzai published the law as he courts fundamentalist Shia mullahs in […]
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted yesterday to add women’s boxing to the 2012 Olympics in London. Women will compete in three weight classes and one male weight class will likely be cut to accommodate the new categories, reports CNN. Boxing was the only remaining sport not open to women in the Olympics. Olympics minister […]
Equality California, California’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, released a report yesterday urging gay rights activists to wait until 2012 to repeal Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in the state. While other groups support pushing for a ballot measure in 2010, Equality California has stated that 2012 is a more realistic goal, according to the […]
Two women hired to work as nannies won a federal lawsuit last week against their employers. A jury awarded Alejandra Ramos and Maria Onelia Maco Castro $125,000 in back wages and damages and found the couple that employed them guilty on five counts, including violating labor and human trafficking laws, according to a press release […]
A federal judge ruled Monday that the Gay-Straight Alliance at Yulee High School in Yulee, Florida, must be permitted to meet on campus and be granted the same privileges as other student clubs. The judge also ruled that the Nassau County School District must not retaliate against individuals involved in the lawsuit or in the […]
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that Belmont Abbey College discriminated against its employees on the basis of sex by denying them health care coverage of contraceptives. According to the Gaston Gazette, the complaint involved the college’s December 2007 decision to alter its employee health insurance plan by removing coverage for oral contraceptives, […]
Fourteen Nobel Laureates released a letter yesterday urging the United Nations Security Council to take action to support fellow Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar. Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years and was sentenced yesterday to 18 months of house arrest after temporarily housing an American […]
The US Department of Justice has withdrawn the federal marshals charged with protecting Leroy Carhart, MD, one of the few physicians in the country who provides late abortions. According to RH Reality Check, federal marshals left Carhart’s Nebraska clinic two weeks ago, despite new campaigns targeting Dr. Carhart by anti-choice groups including Operation Rescue. Kansas […]
Iranian opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi announced Sunday that he has received reports of jailers raping prisoners during the government crackdown on protesters after June’s disputed presidential election. Karroubi, a reformist candidate defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the election, has stated that former senior officials notified him of the abuses, reports the Associated Press. In […]
The Organic Laws and Statues Bureau of Taiwan’s legislature has released a report suggesting changes to the nation’s abortion laws to give women greater control over their reproductive rights. The report proposes changes to the Genetic Health Act, which currently states that married women need spousal consent to have an abortion unless the spouse is […]
