women

Afghan Women have been robbed of Health Care, Education and now their Voices. But they won’t remain Silent

By Susan Hutchinson, Australian National University | – (The Conversation) – Last month, the Taliban passed a new “vice and virtue” law, making it illegal for women to speak in public. Under the law, women can also be punished if they are heard singing or reading aloud from within their homes. It was approved by […]

Featured

Woman, Life, Freedom: Rachel, Shireen, Mahsa and Ayşenur

Fariba Amini

Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – A few days before the invasion of Iraq by American forces under G.W. Bush, on March 16, 2003, a young woman from Seattle, Washington, who had gone to Rafah, in Gaza to help Palestinians halt the demolition of homes died under the bulldozer of the Israeli army. […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: The Taliban’s ‘Vice and Virtue’ Laws Reimpose the Harsh Repression of Women

The Conversation

By Kambaiz Rafi, Durham University | – (The Conversation) – Until the collapse of Afghanistan’s US-backed government in August 2021, few knew clearly what the Taliban wanted once they had returned to power. Some western officials and observers hoped for a big change from the regime, which had governed the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in the […]

Afghanistan

The Push To Recognize ‘Gender Apartheid’ As A Crime

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

Written by Michael Scollon with reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi | – (

Afghanistan

The World’s Nod to Taliban Misogyny

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Tarique Niazi | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The United Nations recently hosted a third round of talks on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, to weigh the prospects for the country’s return to the international system. The talks were attended by special envoys on Afghanistan from 30 world nations, including the United […]

Featured

Bigger than Dobbs: The War on Women is a War on Democracy

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In 2018, the US National Sexual Violence Resource Center published that 81% of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault in their lifetime. Further, the majority of violence against women is perpetrated by male intimate partners and acquaintances. There are myriad other misogynist […]

Featured

A Record-Breaking War on Mothers and their Children

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s permanent representative to the United Nation, spearheaded the November 2023 resolution for a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, given that 70% of those killed in Gaza were children and women. “…Men want to end the war, women want to make peace,” she […]

Featured

A Tale of two Femicides: Remembering Victims in Iraq and Italy on Int’l Women’s Day

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

San Marco, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In early February 2023 a 22-year-old Iraqi YouTube star, Tiba Al-Ali was strangled by her father in an “honor killing,” part of the quotidian violence the nation has endured over the last two decades. In November 2023 Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old engineering student from the Venice region […]

Feminism

The Fate of Nations depends on Women’s Equality: Int’l Women’s Day

H. Patricia Hynes

On March 8, 1908, women garment workers marched through New York City’s Lower East Side to protest child labor and sweatshop working conditions and to demand women’s suffrage. By 1910, March 8 became observed annually as International Women’s Day and continues to be, more widely in other countries often with protests, than in the United […]