Solidaritas #128

Inquest into Indigenous femicides in Australia reveals horrific violence

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 week’s header image is of houses in Port Vila, Vanuatu, where I spent last week.

If you like Solidaritas, I’d be thrilled if you chose to support this newsletter by becoming a free or paid subscriber (just US$/5month!):

This will be the final issue of Solidaritas for 2024. I’ll be back in your inboxes in mid-January 2025 after my summer break.

In solidarity,
- Kate

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Afghanistan
Draconian new laws are allowing the mass incarceration of women and children who have been forced to beg because of the Taliban’s ban on women working. Women have now reported mass rapes and assault in prison.

Photo essay: how the Taliban are erasing women. With photos by the excellent Kiana Hayeri.

Australia
The killings of 68 Indigenous women in the Northern Territory were reviewed at an inquest, the findings of which have just been released:

In unflinching terms, [coroner Elizabeth Armitage] described the killing of 68 Aboriginal women whose deaths were reviewed in the course of the inquest.

They were beaten to death with fists, a concrete block, stomped on, stabbed, set on fire, shot, run over repeatedly with a car. They were killed in private and in public: in homes, in a hospital car park, on a beach. They suffered for hours before dying or days later in hospital.

The list of the dead is 16 pages long.

“All of them were loved and deserved to live their lives free from the violence of men,” Armitage said.

These children weren't the gender their parents hoped for — and they were resented for it.

How medical bias is affecting the health of Australian women.

Photo by Will Turner on Unsplash

China
The Chinese government’s harassing of women to have babies is getting worse: now local officials are even phoning women to ask them about their reproductive cycle.

Major sanitary pad makers in China are apologising after being accused of selling pads that are shorter than advertised. It comes amid a storm of anger after viral social media videos showed Chinese women measuring the lengths of sanitary pads from popular brands, showing that most of them fell short of what was stated on their packaging.

India
In northern India, drones and camera traps deployed to monitor wildlife are being used to surveil women without their consent:

Domestic violence is rampant in the region, and many women spend long hours in the Corbett Tiger Reserve to get away from abusive husbands and fathers. “In the forest nobody is watching us, and we can be carefree,” one local woman recently told researchers. But wildlife monitoring technology is making it harder for women to escape into the woods.

Said a local man, “We are very happy when the Forest Department installs cameras in this part of the forest. Our women come back early or don’t go at all.”

How women’s self-help groups, originally focused on economic empowerment, are now assisting climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Indonesia
Indonesia’s social forestry permits - which redistribute forest management rights to local communities - continue to leave women underrepresented in forest management bodies despite efforts to boost their presence, removing them from decision-making about their forests.

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Japan
The push to allow married women to retain their maiden names is gaining momentum, with many women hoping newly elected politicians can deliver long-awaited legal changes and improve their rights.

Malaysia
On sociocultural norms, power imbalances, and sexual harassment in Malaysia.

Marshall Islands
The race to be the first national soccer team to represent Marshall Islands is gathering momentum, but the question remains will that team be male or female?

Pakistan
Women played a crucial role in the recent protests that led to the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government. The protests highlight the growing recognition of women as equal partners in the country's development and the need for Bangladesh to fully embrace their leadership potential.

The daily struggle of women facing harassment on public transport.

Papua New Guinea
Tragedies in Papua New Guinea are often followed by accusations of sorcery and unspeakable acts of violence. That cycle has become more brutal in recent years:

The men came wielding bush knives. They wanted to avenge a baby girl, who had died the night before. They said she had been killed by a sorcerer’s black magic, and accused a woman who had encountered the baby that morning.

They dragged her out of her house, on the outskirts of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. They broke her hands, tied them to a pole, and burned her back and her belly with hot metal bars. She survived only because her son alerted the police.

“He saved my life,” said Korai, 33, describing the attack from last June. Her skin was still scarred and one hand bumpy with an ill-fixed bone. She asked to be identified by only her first name over safety concerns.

She said of the baby: “I didn’t kill her. I don’t even know what a sorcerer is.”

Photo by Karl Paul Baldacchino on Unsplash

Regional
Mary Jane Veloso, a Philippines national, will be spared execution in Indonesia. Mary Jane was found guilty in 2015 of carrying several kilos of heroin five years earlier, and was sentenced to death. She will now be repatriated to the Philippines.

Samoa
How Miss Samoa contestants are using the pageant as a platform for activism on climate change, sexual violence, and other issues.

The meri blouse, urohs and island dress are now part of Pacific women's identity, but challenges loom. (audio)

South Korea
Women’s only unviersity Dongduk University has reportedly began discussing allowing male students, sparking protests:

Spray paint and protest banners cover the walls and pavements of Dongduk women’s university in Seoul. “We’d rather perish than open our doors,” reads one slogan. …

Yoonkyeong Nah, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yonsei University, says that, more broadly: “The protests reflect how young Korean women feel unsafe in public spaces”, citing the prevalence of illegal filming, stalking, and digital sex crimes, including the latest deepfake pornography epidemic.

“While providing safe spaces isn’t the primary purpose of women’s universities, students are protesting to maintain what they see as a secure environment for learning – it reveals broader problems in Korean society,” Nah says.

Thailand
A woman in Thailand has been sentenced to death in the first of a string of cases in which she is accused of murdering 14 friends with cyanide.

Vietnam
By 2034, Vietnam is projected to have 1.5 million more men than women, driven by cultural preferences for sons and the belief that a 'complete' family must include both boys and girls.