The institution is designed to promote reform and modernization.

Sabina Castelfranco of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports from Jeddah.

As Worldfocus correspondent Gizem Yarbil and producer Bryan Myers discovered, part of the resistance to women playing soccer is religious and part of it is cultural.

Also, explore an interactive feature and Q&A on women’s soccer around the world.

Worldfocus correspondent Hoda Osman and producers Rebecca Haggerty, Megan Thompson and Reda Fakhar traveled to Morocco to explore how these mothers are coping.

For more coverage of women in Morocco, visit our Women in Islam extended coverage page.

Daisy Khan of The Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality and the American Society for Muslim Advancement joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss social taboos for women in Muslim societies.

Women outside Tehran University. Photo: Richard O’Regan

Producer Richard O’Regan ventured to Iran for the Worldfocus signature story “Women in Iran race ahead, but still face gender block.” He describes his impressions of the changing role of women in Iranian society.

The problem Iran has with its women citizens comes into sharp focus when you’re hanging around the gate of Tehran University. As the class day begins, students gush through the turnstiles. Little knots of friends eddy into campus and head off in their separate ways. Two out of three of the students passing by are women. Young women. They are, of course, Iran’s future.

What to do about the pressure for legal rights from young, educated women seems an intractable problem for the men responsible for the last few decades of Iran’s past. Like it or not, women will soon be their nation’s educated elite.

The women you talk to on campus — those few willing to risk being quizzed later about their contact with foreign reporters — say there are aspects of the system that they like. The Islamic dress code does prevent men from “checking you out.” Iranian women can’t imagine how women elsewhere put up with it.

Visiting Iran as a foreigner, you get the feeling that you have parachuted into a work in progress that no one involved can quite figure out; one which leaves outsiders thoroughly baffled. Some women push the limits of what the law permits. Others take comfort in it.

The closest we came to being in danger during our pre-election trip was when a young man took exception to his sisters and female cousins being filmed. The young women teased him for what they saw as an old-fashioned attitude. They were doing they best they could to be noticed. The law says everything but your face and hands must be covered. They went out and got nose jobs so what little the world saw of them was as attractive as possible.

From the look of things — and as a TV crew you sometimes never get past how things seem –- women are oppressed. But then there is the scene at the university gates, and even more revealing scenes outside the medical and pharmaceutical schools. Seventy percent of Iran’s medical students are female. The idea that a democratic nation can suppress its own professional class seems absurd.

Like many really knotty problems, this one stems from internal contradictions. Revolutionary Iran rooted its legal system in Islamic law. But they also were determined to create a Democracy. Not a Western-style democracy, to be sure, but Iran is governed by elected legislators. Soon after the revolution, the Islamic government began a campaign to spread literacy. The campaign worked. Nearly 100 percent of Iranian women educated since the Revolution can read and write. Before the 1979 Revolution, that figure was less than 50 percent.

But the Islamic legal system also took hold. Enshrined in it was a very traditional interpretation of what the rights of men and women should be. To an outsider, they seem a throwback to long-discredited sexist attitudes. When you sit down, as we did, with the men in power, they put forward their belief that the system keeps families stable and that women enjoy the protections it affords them. It sounds reasonable and thoughtful. But it also sounds uncannily like the defenders of patriarchy I met years ago in apartheid South Africa. They assured me that the vast majority of black people loved the system. It turned out they didn’t have that exactly right.

The problem for the men running Iran today is that the cohort of educated women they have helped create are perfectly capable of reading the Qur’an for themselves. When they do, they don’t find in it the rules they have had to live by for their entire lives. The movement to upend Iran’s legal patriarchy seems to be building. Mostly surreptitiously, activists have begun gathering signatures on a petition demanding change. Their stated goal: A million people.

So many Iranian women have come to think that the current laws of the Islamic Republic — which, in most cases, put them under the legal supervision of their male relatives — are not part of their religion at all, but part of the social customs of the Arab nomads who first adopted Islam and brought it to Persia in the Seventh Century. (Arabs in general, and nomads in particular, are not widely admired in Iran.)

Their reading has led to a nightmare for those in Iran who like the system just as it is. They see any movement for change as an attempt to overthrow the government. In one sense, it is. In a patriarchy, after all — it is the patriarchs who have all the power. Upend the system and other people take charge.

To Iran’s current leaders, a faithful religious opposition to laws and policies that they have declared to be a divine mandate is the worst kind of revolution -– one that strips them of their religious and political legitimacy by using the tools of democratic change.

You’d have thought they might have seen it coming when they started that literacy campaign.

- Richard O’Regan

Clinton visited a clinic and a large refugee camp in the eastern town of Goma, where she pledged $17 million to deal with sexual abuse.

Severinne Autesserre, an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the conflict in Congo and how the country’s government and people will respond to Clinton’s message.

Watch the Worldfocus signature video “Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo” and see our extended coverage of the crisis in Congo.

Read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say about Clinton’s mission: Clinton must call for an end to Congo’s media censorship

A blogger at “Texas in Africa” writes an open letter to Hillary Clinton:

I think it’s great that you’re headed [to Goma]. You have to get out of Kinshasa to understand the country and its governance problems, and you will not understand the conflict in full — or how pitiful and inadequate the international response to it is — without going to the east and meeting some of the victims. [...] You will meet little girls who’ve been gang raped by soldiers and who can no longer talk or feed themselves. You’ll see mothers and their children who live in a kind of poverty that does not compare with what you see in Kenya or South Africa or Ghana or any of the places you’ve previously visited on the continent.

Remind yourself that this is the norm in eastern Congo. [...] You will not be the same after hearing their stories. But the people of the Congo don’t need you to see and be shocked by their situation. They need you to do something. They need you to go beyond the rhetoric. So I am begging you: please make this trip different.

Blogger “Marcel,” with Oxfam’s operations in Congo, gives Clinton some advice based on experience with rape victims:

This afternoon I’m supposed to be attending a meeting with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who flew into Congo last night.

She couldn’t have picked a more appropriate time. Rape is widespread here, and cases have increased dramatically in the past few months.

I remember a woman I met in the remote Lubero territory of North Kivu Province. She told me she witnessed a gang rape of another woman by three armed men. It is almost impossible to describe the scenes she told me, but she was so brutally raped that she later died of internal bleeding. The witness, the woman I talked to, fled the area in terror. So did thousands of other unnamed victims in the past few months.

[...] If Hillary Clinton asks me what she can do to reduce rape in eastern Congo, I will tell her first of all that the US government, and the rest of the international community, needs to urgently rethink its support for an offensive that has - according to UN figures - forced more than 800,000 people to flee their homes, and has resulted in rape cases spiralling out of control. The military option must not be the only strategy. It is always the civilians - the women, children and men of Eastern Congo - who pay the highest price for any military operation.

The “Wide Angle View” blog examines different approaches to combating rape:

I was encouraged to read about both the top-down and a bottom-up approaches underway in the area to address sexual violence, which I think are equally important for effective change. Having legal structures in place regarding all forms of sexual violence against women is vital for preventing aggressors from acting with impunity, and may provide some preventative dissuasion. And public services are essential for dealing with the aftermath. On the other hand, changing attitudes is a slower process, and immensely difficult, but it offers the only hope of clipping sexual violence in the early stages before it can grow and take root.

Doctors Without Borders shares a video of Congolese refugees in neighboring Sudan:

The

Voters elected four women to Kuwait’s parliament.

There was a political milestone in Kuwait this weekend, where for the first time, women were elected to Kuwait’s parliament.

Voters elected four women to the 50-member parliament and rejected a number of Islamic fundamentalist candidates. It was only four years ago that women won the right to vote in Kuwait.

A Kuwaiti woman at the “This Lady Says” blog expresses her joy and pride at the outcome:

With tears in my eyes, thoughts on my mind and the utmost joy in my heart, I’d like to thank each and every single person who voted yesterday. It’s because of you that we were able to change more than 40% of the parliament members. We made four women members of the parliament. Not one, not two, but four!

Though you and I may be different, and though we might share different opinions, we still participated in one of Kuwait’s most important events. We took matters into our own hands and we went and ticked the names we wanted on the ballots. We did not give up, we did not despair. Although Kuwait experienced the lowest turnout of voters ever to take part in the elections, many of us still went there and did their duty.

We can’t sit and home and complain about a situation and then refuse to take action when action is needed. We, the people, hold the votes in our hand. We have, and always will have, the power to change things. And when change is due, change must come.

And finally, change has come. It might be small to begin with, but gradually, things will change for the better. We can’t expect whatever needs to be mended, to be fixed right away. With time, and with a lot of hard work, we will get there.

I love my country. It’s not perfect. It might never be. But it’s my country. It’s given me so much, and I’m so glad that I never ever forget that. And I hope that as long as I live, I will be able to give back to Kuwait what it has given me.

Blogger Falantan disagrees, quoting a book that says “People who appoint women to lead them will not succeed” [translation courtesy of Worldfocus associate producer Mohammad Al-Kassim]. He writes:

I think it’s a prophetic statemtent [sic] that speaks about any people who appoint a lady to public office.

I did not vote for women yesterday, and I had no doubt in my mind that Ma3sooma [candidate Massouma al-Mubarak] (my vote is in her constituency) was a great person. If she had been a man, I would probably vote for her. But again I didn’t vote for her because of this 7adeeth [prophetic saying].

So best of luck to Kuwait in their misguided choice to place 4 women into Parliament. Inshalla we don’t get more in the future.

The “Pocket Full of Sunshine” blog writes that women will be equally strong, if not stronger, leaders:

Us women (especially in the Kuwaiti society) are very disadvantaged not just within the society but also within the institutions that individually make up our society.

Women are the future of Kuwait, we do have the ability, the knowledge, the power to change.
I do not want men, women, boys, girls to question the power that us women have over change, we ARE capable, we ARE willing, we DO have the opportunity, we CAN make the change.

I, personally believe that people in the likes of Dr. Aseel Al Awadhi, Rola Dashti, Dr.Masouma Mubarek Dr.Rasha Al Sabahand Sheikha AlGhanim should be in the parliament, these women are the change I want to see in the world. Dr.Aseel Al Awadhi is somebody I strive to be even slightly like in the future, women like her give me hope and not only do I believe that she can change the books for Kuwait but for each and every woman and man out there she gives us that little bit of hope that change is out there, it is coming and she never lets me doubt that for a second. Until its my turn to be in the parliament, until it’s my turn to make the change. Dr.Aseel Al Awadhi belongs in the parliament and that is a FACT.

Blogger Hilaliya writes that the campaign strategies of the more fundamentalist candidates backfired:

Our faith in the system and people of Kuwait was reaffirmed today.

Following years of uncertainty and gridlock, the people of Kuwait have voted for change. I am certainly in high spirits, and relieved. We were hoping one or two women would make it in, we got four!

Some newcomer independents also won and ‘Hadas’ took a big hit in the 3rd District (my district). The ‘fatwas’ and mudslinging by xenophobic elements towards women and progressive candidates backfired, reenergizing and intensifying support for them.

Another blogger describes campaigning for one of the female winners:

I’m elated that several women won. That Dr Rola Dashti was among the winners… well that just rocks!

I joined her camp about a month ago [...] The last few days especially were awesome! That said, yesterday was brutal! We had to wake up at the crack of done, hotfoot it to the schools we were allocated to, man our positions, and “work it”. I know that it was a teensy bit cloudy and there was a slight breeze but honestly that didn’t make much of a difference. It was still so hot! The rain was a pleasant change.

What was even more refreshing was the fact that the chicks, young and old, the ones that came to vote and the ones who were working, like us, were all so nice! That seriously blew me over. No matter how many times I see it, feel it, experience it. I still can’t believe it. The women that came to vote were all “ya36eekum il3afyah”. The younger chicks that were “workin’ it” were super-friendly to each other and to the girls in other camps.

At night, everyone let their guards down and completely relaxed. There was singing, clapping, and some weird dancing. The jovial mood spread like wildfire. I felt a certain fondness for all these crazy, happy, hard-working, good people.

“Alpha Dinar,” a Kuwaiti blog focused on finance, writes that female representation will have an economic impact:

Electing four women to the Kuwaiti parliament is a milestone in our democracy and a firm step in the progress and development of our country. I firmly believe that it will have major economic repercussions. Voting for women is an evident social/political change that can pave the road for financial overhaul and openness. We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel that will transform our dependent mentality and socialist economy into accountable capitalism. Let us celebrate this moment and work hard for more to follow.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Buthaina al-Othman under a Creative Commons license.

Environmentalists and others may balk at the world’s rapid population growth, as the global population is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050 — but in Russia, the opposite is true.

Facing dual threats of low birth rates and soaring mortality rates, the Russian population is aging and dying, according to a recent report from the United Nations Development Programme.

Life expectancy in Russia is some 12 years less than life expectancy in the U.S. Russia lost more than 12 million people over the last 16 years, and may lose another 11 million by 2025.

In an effort to combat the trend, the Kremlin has launched a pro-natalist campaign, expanding maternity leave benefits and offering financial incentives to mothers with more than one child.

The population decline has also impacted Russia’s national discussions on reproduction and abortion.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the factors driving Russia’s population decline and its implications for Russian society and public policy.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia and blogs at “Window on Eurasia.” Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Previously, he worked in various capacities at the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence.

Vladimir Lenskiy is the New York bureau chief and correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television, the country’s oldest and largest television network with an audience of 100 million viewers throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. He has over a decade of experience as a reporter for Russia’s independent national television networks, including NTV (Nezavisimoye Televideniye), TVS and TV-6, a Moscow-based independent channel.

Louisa Vinton is a senior program manager at the United Nations Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where she is responsible for UNDP activities in seven countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Previously, Louisa worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a senior research analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user eurutuf under a Creative Commons license.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Nicole E. Foster, Katie Combs and Bijan Rezvani

Worldfocus special correspondent Kristen Gillespie reports on sexual attitudes in Beirut. Read her blog from in the field: Beirut’s underground gay community congregates discreetly.

Environmentalists and others may balk at the world’s rapid population growth, as the global population is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050 – but in Russia, the opposite is true.

Facing dual threats of low birth rates and soaring mortality rates, the Russian population is aging and dying, according to a recent report from the United Nations Development Programme.

Life expectancy in Russia is some 12 years less than life expectancy in the U.S. Russia lost more than 12 million people over the last 16 years, and may lose another 11 million by 2025.

In an effort to combat the trend, the Kremlin has launched a pro-natalist campaign, expanding maternity leave benefits and offering financial incentives to mothers with more than one child.

The population decline has also impacted Russia’s national discussions on reproduction and abortion.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the factors driving Russia’s population decline and its implications for Russian society and public policy.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia and blogs at “Window on Eurasia.” Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Previously, he worked in various capacities at the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting Baltic independence.

Vladimir Lenksy is the New York bureau chief and correspondent for Russia’s Channel One television, the country’s oldest and largest television network with an audience of 100 million viewers throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. He has over a decade of experience as a reporter for Russia’s independent national television networks, including NTV (Nezavisimoye Televideniye), TVS and TV-6, a Moscow-based independent channel.

Louisa Vinton is a senior program manager at the United Nations Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, where she is responsible for UNDP activities in seven countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Previously, Louisa worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit and as a senior research analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user eurutuf under a Creative Commons license.

Over the past several decades, women politicians have made strides in Africa. The share of parliamentary seats held by women increased from 7 percent in 1990 to 17 percent in 2007.

The Rwandan parliament is a world leader in terms of female political participation, with 56 percent of its seats held by women. Liberia now has Africa’s first elected woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Watch Worldfocus’ signature story and an extended interview with Sirleaf: Africa’s first elected female president lifts Liberia.

But this heightened gender equality in government has not necessarily translated into equality in everyday life for the majority of African women, who still face disproportionate poverty, violence and challenges in accessing education.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the political, economic and social implications of the rise of women power players in Africa.

Thank you for your questions. Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Micheline Ravololonarisoa is the chief of the Africa Section at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has more than 25 years of experience as a sociologist, feminist and activist specializing in African development and women’s issues. Micheline began her activist career with a student movement in her native Madagascar and was forced to leave the country in 1974 because of this work. She has served as program director at the Agency for Cooperation Research and Development (ACORD) and remains a member of several African and international women’s networks, including Akina Mama wa Afrika and ABANTU for Development.

Lynn Sherr is an award-winning journalist and author who has contributed to Worldfocus reports from Liberia, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua. She is a former correspondent with ABC’s “20/20″ and covered a wide range of stories, specializing in women’s issues and social changes, as well as investigative reports. Lynn is the author of “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words” and “Tall Blondes.”

Aili Mari Tripp is a professor of political science and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Women’s Studies Research Center. Her research has focused on women and politics in Africa, women’s movements in Africa, transnational feminism, African politics (with particular reference to Uganda and Tanzania), and on the informal economy in Africa. She is co-author of “African Women’s Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes” and author of “Women and Politics in Uganda” and “Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania.”

See related Worldfocus videos and blogs:

Women rank high in Rwanda’s government

Africa’s first elected female president lifts Liberia

Liberian summit celebrates African women with laughter

Women’s movement transforms post-war Liberia

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Nicole E. Foster and Katie Combs

Worldfocus special correspondent Lynn Sherr and producer Megan Thompson report on a movement that helped to drive a dictator from power and gave women the kind of opportunities they could never have dreamed of.

For more from Lynn Sherr, listen to our online radio show on African women in power. 

Watch more videos from this series and read blogs from the field: Liberia’s Long Road Back. 

Also watch for PBS Wide Angle’s showing of “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” next year.

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state.

Worldfocus correspondent Lynn Sherr is in Monrovia, Liberia, reporting on how the country is faring following its long civil war. She writes about attending the lively International Colloquium on Women. 

Who says feminists don’t have a sense of humor? The laughter was liberating today in Monrovia, Liberia, where a two-day International Colloquium on Women opened with appropriate pomp, ceremony and wit.

That Liberia could even contemplate such an event in the wake of a 15-year civil war that destroyed the country’s government and infrastructure, and nearly its future, sounds like a very bad joke all by itself. More than 200,000 people died in the fighting; several million more were displaced. The roads are barely passable; bullet holes still make major buildings uninhabitable.

And when one American guest arrived at our downtown hotel past midnight this morning, she was stunned to be escorted to her pitch-dark room by a fellow toting a rifle. She was, of course, perfectly safe.

Still, the rooms are clean and spacious, and the band at the rooftop bar plays a mean rock tune.

After all, Liberia has had a new president since 2006 –- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state, who has brought a new sense of promise to this West African nation and to the entire continent. It is she who dared to convene hundreds of women from around the world to help inspire her own countrywomen.

In the process, she’s made them smile, which is no small feat in this post-conflict country.

During the opening ceremonies, a young Liberian girl participating in a pageant of famous women in history charmed the house with her portrayal of Rosa Parks, the American who woman whose refusal to sit in the back of the bus helped start the civil rights movement.

Another Liberian participant brought down the house when she announced herself as “the richest woman in the world.” Who knew Oprah Winfrey would show up?

Actually, it wasn’t a house at all, but a leafy-roofed, open-air shelter in the center of SKD (for Samuel Kay Doe, one of Johnson-Sirleaf’s less beloved predecessors) Stadium, a recently refurbished arena that seems to be tolerating the foreign guests reasonably well. No plates in the lunch line? No problem; they’re washed and dried in just a minute. No spaces in the conference? Stand by –- a stack of chairs is brought in.

Plenty of stacks were needed for a riotous session late this afternoon during which two teams of extremely distinguished female African dignitaries entertained the packed hall with a tongue-in-cheek debate on whether we really need all those women in public office. The debaters –- elected and appointed officials from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zimbabwe and other countries –- maintained a spirited dialogue, whose tone was set by moderator Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, co-founder and executive director of the African Women’s Development Fund.

“Throwing shoes is acceptable,” she announced at the start of the festivities, “as long as they are size tens and Manolo Blahniks.”

Tomorrow, it’s down to more serious business. If, that is, there is anything more serious than being able to laugh at yourself.

- Lynn Sherr

Watch for Worldfocus’ upcoming series on Liberia in the coming weeks. 

Photo courtesy of Flickr user World Economic Forum  under a Creative Commons license.

A parade in Cameroon on International Women’s Day.

Sunday marked International Women’s Day, a global day recognizing economic, political and social achievements of women.

Amid celebrations worldwide, from Cameroon to Chile, some of the discussion focused on how the gender gap may be impacted by the worsening economic crisis. 

“It is expected that women and girls in both developed and developing countries will be particularly affected by job cuts, lose of livelihoods, increased responsibilities in all spheres of their life, and an increased risk of societal and domestic violence,” reported the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Yakin Ertürk, on Sunday. 

Read an account of International Women’s Day in Liberia, where hundreds of world representatives met for the International Colloquium on Women: Liberian summit celebrates African women with laughter.

Blogger “Dawn,” an American living in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, writes about a women’s day march outside her apartment:

Somehow I had never noticed women’s day until I came to live in Africa. [...] Here, it is a big deal. [...] The event consists of women parading around town. Each group of women buys matching outfits, carries a banner and often something to signify their group. For example, the group of women who sell shoes were carrying shoes on their head.

[…]If there is anywhere in the world, where women deserately need to stand together and show their strength it is here in Congo. The incidence of rape in Eastern Congo is the highest in the world right now. And if there is anywhere that they could speak out, it is here in Congo. Congolese women are strong; they are not timid. Certainly they were not timid as they jostled for the best place in line. I understand that there are some places in the world where women are simply unable to stand together and make a statement. They are too afraid to raise their voices. But this is not that place.

And so I found it heartbreaking when I began to calculate the amount of money women spend to buy cloth for this one day. And I considered the power that a group of women this large could have, if they decided to tackle an issue that women here struggle with. So much could be done on this day.  

Learn more about violence against Congolese women in our signature video: Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo.

The “American Bedu” blog, written by a former American diplomat living in Saudi Arabia, discusses the country’s progress in terms of gender equality:

For those who take relish in reading of the lack of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and viewing the Saudi woman as among the most oppressed in the world, I’d like to point out that Saudi women are consistently receiving more opportunities. These are opportunities in education, employment, legal rights, etc. I know there will be so many naysayers saying these are minimal and only because a “man” approved but guess what…that is a fact of life in Saudi Arabia. And this fact will not change until Saudi women (and not expat women or other groups) choose to take initiatives for changes – if they want them in the first place.

[…] I wish to recognize my dear Saudi mother-in-law, Mama Moudy. She may never drive, she may never be seen uncovered, she may not be educated but she is among one of the wisest, compassionate, supportive (she accepted her son marrying an American!), kind and beautiful (inside and out) women I have met.

Blogger Roshan Norouzi, a photographer in Iran, posts images of a young Iranian man wearing a headscarf in solidarity with women.

An American blogger named “Bethany,” living in Jerusalem, writes about a women’s march against demolitions of Palestinian homes:

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Women’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. […] Right here in Jerusalem, a group of women celebrated this holiday. Here, however, the focus was not solely on women. A group of women formed a march against home demolitions occurring in the Al-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan. 88 homes have been set for home demolitions, which will result in the displacement of 1500 Palestinians. Demolitions in Silwan, will leave room for a park, hardly a justification for leaving 1500 people homeless.

A coworker of mine and I joined in the March against the home demolitions in Silwan. It was powerful to see the strength of the women involved and clear that Palestinian women often emerge as the movers and shakers of their society. When the group began to form before the march, the leading women handed out posters. The posters symbolized the essence of a Palestinian woman. They are rooted in the land, the protectors of livelihood (symbolized by olive trees), and shine light to the world. As the group began to walk into the area of Silwan, chants emanated from everyone following. We made our way through the neighborhood to an area where the home demolitions are planned. When we got to this area, we joined a group already congregated underneath a tent, holding a rally for the Al-Bustan neighborhood. Both men and women, children and elders joined together in solidarity. You could see the passion of the people as they expressed their frustration and heartache over their families and friends who were losing their homes. Children even joined in the peaceful protest. They sang a song dedicated to Silwan and joined in the chanting. One of the most precious moments happened when a girl, probably about 6 years old, shouted a chant in the silence, which rallied the whole group to join in a response.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user zzilch under a Creative Commons license.

A woman in Nepal.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday, a group of Nepali women announced that they would climb the world’s highest mountains in a symbol of female empowerment.

Nepal has made strides toward democracy in recent years, and a number of women were elected to the country’s new assembly last year. 

But discriminatory attitudes persist, and daily life for women in Nepal remains difficult. Domestic violence against women is common, and the United Nations reports that beating, slapping, kicking, hair-pulling, verbal abuse and use of sticks, knives and acid are also frequent. During menstruation, some women are confined in dirty huts. 

Nepal was ranked 120 out of 130 countries [PDF] on the World Economic Forum’s measure of gender equality. 

Jannie Kwok is a program officer at The Asia Foundation’s office in Kathmandu, Nepal. She writes at the “In Asia” blog to describe how one theater group in rural Nepal is using drama to combat gender-based violence and work toward equality. 

In Nepal: Countering Violence against Women in Post-Conflict Nepal

I recently watched a local Nepali theater group skillfully combine theater with politics to explore gender-based violence in conflict-affected communities.

Developed in the 1970s by a Brazilian political activist and director, “The International Theater of the Oppressed” is a method that has been practiced in theaters across the globe to help communities address social injustices. A drama is acted out in scripted mode until it reaches the climax; then, at that moment, the audience is asked to collectively reflect on the problem and is invited into the drama to “rehearse” the preferred ending they envision for their communities.

When I arrived to see the first performance at Aarohan Theater in a Tharu village in the Kailali district of mid-western Nepal, the midday sun was beating down. The actors were dressed in colorful traditional Tharu costumes and were dancing and singing to attract an audience. I was particularly pleased to see a large number of women and their small children already gathered for the performance.

The play began with a very typical scene in these villages: the wife doing household chores and the husband shouting to her to make him tea and breakfast. It continued to depict the daily hardships in the village and the struggles of the Tharu people. Then one night, the husband came home drunk and began belligerently shouting at his wife. During this scene, one woman in the audience, sitting near me, commented out loud to all of us (including the Aarohan director), that this scene frequently played out in her own house. She softly laughed, but her eyes were sad.

The narrator stopped the play at a dramatic point when the husband was about to beat his wife. He then asked for comments from the audience. The woman seated near me loudly suggested from her seat that he should not beat his wife. The narrator asked her to join the drama and act out what the wife should say next to the husband. At first she refused, but after some encouragement from the Aarohan director and other audience members she approached the “stage” and proceeded to speak out against the abuse. Although her moment in the spotlight was short, she had a chance to rehearse what she wanted to do in real life; to fight against the violence she faced.

The audience also shouted out other ideas and solutions, such as asking neighbors to intervene or going to a mothers’ or women’s group for assistance. After more than an hour of discussion and debate, the husband in the play finally signed an agreement stating he would not beat his wife. This action was facilitated by the local mothers’ group members. Through these exercises developed by “Theater of the Oppressed,” the audience not only got to suggest the outcome they wanted for the play; they also got to practice how to make that outcome a dramatic reality, in essence learning how to deal with gender discrimination and oppression in real life in the process.

As the group performed, I was surprised by the boldness of these village women in the audience and their courage to speak out against their own oppressive situations. While tradition and religion have long relegated Nepali women to a lower status than men, the decade-long armed conflict in Nepal has severely exacerbated the inequality in male-female relationships, increasing women’s vulnerability to exploitation and violence. Things that have contributed to the disproportionate impact of the conflict on women include damage to traditional social and economic networks, loss of male heads of household, forced displacement, and reduced access to health and educational facilities. The breakdown of community safety networks has also resulted in marked increases in the incidence of threats, rape, sexual harassment, and exploitation perpetrated against women.

Even today, women in the most conflict-affected areas of Nepal continue to encounter high incidences of domestic violence in their homes. According to a local survey taken in Mid-Western Nepal, of the 190 married women interviewed, 91 percent reported domestic violence perpetrated by their husbands in the past two years. Survey results also revealed that 86 percent of respondents were forced into non-consensual sex, 70 percent reported physical injuries such as slapping, arm twisting, hitting with fists or other objects, pushing, kicking, or choking, and 50 percent reported injury with a weapon at least once.

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user farmingmatters under a Creative Commons license.

Cristina Fernández, the president of Argentina.

Latin American leaders like Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Argentina’s Cristina Fernández — both the first elected female presidents of their countries — have been heralded as examples of gender equality in politics and inspirations to women worldwide. But other Latin American countries retain cultural stereotypes about gender and few women hold office.

Kristen  Sample is senior programme officer at International IDEA and writes at “OpenDemocracy” exploring how different electoral systems have resulted in such varying levels of power for Latin American women.

No hay mujeres: Latin America women and gender equality

Thirty years after the start of the third wave of democracy in Latin America,  the region’s policy-makers and civil society have the “final frontier” of this historic process in sight: to ensure that democracy works for all citizens in equal measure, regardless of gender.

In Latin America there has in recent years been an increase in both the number and percentage of women in politics - embodied by the rise to power of two female presidents, Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Cristina Fernández in Argentina. Their election has, in turn, generated a renewed debate on the state of women in politics today in the region. The reality, perhaps surprising, is that the progress of women in assuming elected office in Latin America varies considerably: between and even within countries, nationally and sub-nationally.

[...]The choice of electoral system has an enormous impact - perhaps more than any other single factor - on the number of women elected to public office.

Chart detailing the percentage of women representatives in elected office in Latin America. Chart: OpenDemocracy

For instance, one basic ground-rule: “list” systems - in which electors select from lists of candidates - are far better at facilitating the election of women (and minority-groups) than first-past-the-post system systems (as found in the United States, Britain and Canada) as they encourage parties to develop comparatively more balanced candidate lists. When a party has to bet on one candidate for a legislative seat - as in the case of a first-past-the-post system - the slot generally goes to a man. When the party presents a list of candidates to represent a legislative district, however, it is more apt to balance the list by assigning selected slots to women. That’s why of the ten countries with the highest percentage of women legislators, nine have some variation of the list system.

Two specific examples demonstrate the importance of the design of the electoral system to more balanced representation:

Why does Argentina have 40% women legislators, while neighbouring Brazil has only 8%? Both countries have list systems with gender-quotas, but they’re only effective in Argentina where parties run “closed” lists and are required to alternate men and women in “electable” positions higher up the list. Brazil, on the other hand, allows parties to present a number of candidates equivalent to as much as 150% of the number of seats being contested and there is no sanction for non-compliance with the quota. Additionally, Brazil’s candidate-centred “open” list-system makes success more dependent on access to campaign funding, an area in which women face greater disadvantages.

Why do women account for nearly one in three legislators in Peru, but only one in thirty mayors? There are at least two reasons for this. First, representatives in collective bodies (legislatures, town councils) in Peru are elected from “list positions” while executives  (president, departmental president and mayor) are chosen from a first-past-the-post system. Second, a 30% quota applies to the legislature and local councils, but not to mayors or other executive positions.

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ¡Que comunismo! under a Creative Commons license.

Raeda al Nanaa is 25 years old and supervises the jewelery workshop profiled in the story. After her father fell terminally ill, Raeda passed on a college scholarship to go to work and support her family.

Worldfocus correspondent Kristen Gillespie reports from Jordan.

Read her blog post about her experience: Divorce outcasts women from Jordan’s social structure.

The rise of women in power is in part due to the country’s electoral quota (30 percent female), and partly a consequence of male deaths during the country’s 1994 genocide. Women comprise 55 percent of the Rwandan population as a whole.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Seemungal travels to Rwanda, a country recovering from its terrible genocide with the help of some very powerful women.

Blogger Andrea Friedman at “The Huffington Post” writes in support of gender quotas, arguing that they foster change.

The “African Studies Blog” links to an article claiming that though women are participating more and more in politics, they are not able to influence policymaking.

Writer “Dana Liebelson” discusses Rwandan gender politics in the context of American politics and the state of women in other African nations, arguing that women are viewed in black-and-white terms as either “equal citizen or victim.”

Watch a female member of the Rwandan parliament talk about her experience.

Stephen F. DeAngelis outlines the contributions of women to the Rwandan economy and traces a short history of gender roles in the country. The Washington Post published a video about Rwandan women and the economy.

In the U.S., about 17 percent of national government officials are women.

The controversial move to legalize abortion has been challenged in the Supreme Court and upheld. Ninety percent of Mexico’s population is Catholic.

Martin Savidge travels to populous Mexico City, where the abortion debate rages on.

Below, bloggers in Mexico and elsewhere voice their support or opposition to the city’s legalization of abortion — a rarity in Latin American countries.

Reverend Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International writes about his organization’s trip to Mexico, where they prayed in front of an abortion clinic. He calls Mexico City’s law “cruel and inhumane.”

The “Guanabee” blog argues that abortion is much more than a religious issue, writing that it also involves class, gender politics and culture issues.

“The Unapologetic Mexican” blog writes that media coverage of the legalization was biased and virtually ignored women’s voices, but calls the new law “a good start.”

The “South Chicagoan” blog writes that Mexico City’s decision to provide free Viagra to elderly men reflects gender bias when it comes to sexuality, since it is still so difficult to get an abortion.

The “Ciudad de Mexico” blog (in Spanish) wonders why Mexico City’s legislators did not engage in public debate on the issue prior to the legalization. (See Google’s English translation of the entry)

Blogger “Jo Tuckman” writes that it is amazing how far Mexico has come in such a short period of time.

For more on the abortion debate in Latin American countries, see what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say about the Urguayan president’s veto of a bill that would have legalized abortion in that country.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user emilyjmc06 under a Creative Commons license.

President Tabaré Vázquez vetoed a bill that would have legalized abortion in Uruguay. Photo: Presidencia de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay

President Tabaré Vázquez used his veto pen to stop a bill that would have legalized abortion in Uruguay, keeping the procedure illegal.

Uruguay has been secular for much of its history, unlike many other Latin American nations. The bill had passed in the Uruguayan House and Senate, but parliament did not gain the three-fifths support necessary to override Vázquez ’s veto. The president, a doctor, cited “the reality of the existence of human life in the gestation period” in his explanation for the veto.

Benjamin Gedan is a Fulbright research scholar living in Montevideo and studying the Uruguayan media. He writes at his blog, “Small State,” about the ongoing Uruguayan abortion debate.

In secular Uruguay, abortion still a criminal act

At first glance, the decision by Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez to veto legislation legalizing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is surprising. After all, the president’s own party, the Frente Amplio, promoted the legislation in both the House and Senate. The very fact that abortion is illegal in Uruguay, by far the most secular country in Latin America, seems out of place. For example, in Mexico, where the Catholic Church is far more influential, the capital city legalized abortion in April 2007.

But what seems clear is that Uruguayans are far more comfortable skipping out on church on Sunday than accepting abortion. A recent poll by Interconsult found that only 57 percent of Uruguayans support the legalization of abortion, the BBC reported.

In a statement, Vázquez framed his objections in secular terms: “Los derechos son la ética de la democracia, la vida de todos es el bien primero por el que deben velar los gobiernos democráticos” (”Legal rights are the ethics of democracy, and human life is the primary object that democratic governments should value”). But as my Fulbright colleague and guest-blogger Todd Martinez has observed, Uruguayans, though hardly churchgoers, are not exactly atheists either. Read Todd’s take on the abortion debate here.

I’ve heard that Vázquez may ultimately come out in favor of a referendum on the abortion issue, or simply leave the issue to the next president. If the Frente Amplio wins the presidency for the second time and keeps control of Congress, Uruguay may very well end up with an abortion law that matches its global image. For now, however, women who have an abortion and the doctors who help them still face prison, and abortion is only allowed in cases of rape or if the life of the mother is in danger.

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.