Solidaritas #106
How North Korea’s woman’s football team is a powerful form of soft power propaganda
Good morning!
Solidaritas is a fortnightly newsletter about women’s rights, feminism, and gender in Asia and the Pacific, covering the entirety of this huge region: from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the west to Kiribati and Cook Islands in the east.
This issue’s header image is of Nyepi (Balinese New Year) celebrations in Kendari, 2012.
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In solidarity,
- Kate
Before we get into the Asia-Pacific updates, two notes on Gaza:
Maryam Aldossari: “The message leading Western feminists are sending to Palestinian women is loud and clear: your suffering does not matter.”
As in most wars and conflicts, women and children are most affected: Nearly 70% of those reported killed in Gaza are children and women. Nearly 3,200 children have been killed in three weeks, a number which surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.
Afghanistan
An Afghan rights campaigner who advocated for girls’ inclusion in education has been released by Taliban authorities after seven months in jail. Matiullah Wesa, who travelled the country campaigning for girls to have access to education, was arrested in March for “propaganda against the government”.
Trapped in their homes by the Taliban rules, women and girls comprise the majority of October’s earthquake casualties.
Australia
Inside Australia's child protection system, where experts say Indigenous mothers are being “punished”.
A 21-year-old sports coach, Lilie James, was killed by a male colleague at the Sydney school where she worked, prompting the New South Wales domestic violence prevention minister to call on the community to change, saying “Government can fund programs but unless individuals take responsibility for themselves, that government funding will be wasted.”
Bangladesh
Almost 5,000 women in Bangladesh die each year of cervical cancer, but change is coming, with the HPV vaccination now incorporated into the country’s routine vaccination schedule.
China
The Chinese Communist Party’s message to the National Women's Congress: gender equality is out, family and childbirth are in.
India
New research helps explain why Indian girls appear to be less engaged in politics than Indian boys.
Japan
Japanese companies that have more female directors tend to beat their peers in terms of stock market performance, according to new analysis.
Malaysia
What happened to gender-responsive budgeting in Malaysia?
A group of Orang Asli (First Nations) women have been advocating to strengthen their representation in Malaysian society through documentaries and workshops:
Orang Asli women face multiple layers of challenges and obstacles while advocating for their cause, and often, these barriers are entangled with their identities as women and Indigenous people. As a minority group in Malaysia, they have had their ancestral lands stolen and encroached upon, have had less access to health services, and have faced diminishing livelihoods, political and social exclusion, economic and education disparities.
New Zealand
The Māori seat of Hauraki-Waikato is set to have a new MP, the youngest in 170 years, with 21-year-old Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke unseating Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta.
North Korea
How North Korea’s woman’s football team is a powerful form of soft power propaganda.
Regional
Progress on girls’ education: new UNESCO data reveals that 50 million more girls have been enrolled in school globally since 2015.
Samoa
The Samoa Parliament has approved a recommendation to revisit Samoa's Constitution to clarify the wording of the 10 per cent quota for women's seats and how it is calculated.
Sri Lanka
An op-ed on unpaid domestic work:
“While housework and care work should not be gendered, sociocultural norms deem such work as “women’s work”… In Sri Lanka, there is a significant disparity in how unpaid care work and housework is shared between women and men. According to Sri Lanka’s Time Use Survey (2017), 87.3% of women and girls above the age of 10 participated in housework and care work compared to only 59.7% of men and boys.”
Vanuatu
Vanuatu is aiming to be the first Pacific country to eliminate cervical cancer.
Vietnam
During the Vietnam War, thousands of women were raped by South Korean soldiers and later bore their children. The government continues to turn a blind eye to their suffering.