Solidaritas #142
Solomon Islands to raise legal marriage age to 18
Good afternoon!
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.
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In solidarity,
- Kate
Afghanistan
Since mid-July, the Taliban have arrested dozens of women and girls in Kabul for allegedly violating Taliban dress codes.
Are travel influencers legitimising the Taliban and their violations of women’s rights?
Aoterea New Zealand
What do young Kiwi women want? RNZ spoke to six young women about their experience with sex and relationships in a dating culture that is increasingly confusing and tainted with violence.
Australia
New Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals that Australia’s gender pay gap is at the lowest ever level since records began, at 11.5 per cent.
Bangladesh
Rohingya refugee women living in overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar face health hazards due to a lack of sanitary facilities. DW spoke with one woman who is working to improve the situation. (video)
China
After a Telegram channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers was discovered last month was found to be sharing exploitative images of Chinese women, some women have taken it upon themselves to warn everyone they can.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong's privacy watchdog has launched a criminal investigation into an AI-generated porn scandal at Hong Kong University, after a student was accused of creating sexual images of his female classmates and teachers.
India
An anonymous whistleblower alleges that over decades, hundreds of men, women and children were murdered and buried in the sacred temple town of Dharmasthala.
Indonesia
An exhibition at the National Museum shows that marking the contribution of Indonesian women to the nation remains highly contentious.
Malaysia
Meet the all-women indigenous rangers team protecting Malaysia’s gibbons.
Nauru
Almost half of all women in Nauru have experienced physical or sexual violence. The country hosted the 6th annual meeting of the regional working group on the implementation of family protection and domestic violence legislation last week.
Pakistan
Women in Pakistan die every day for supposedly dishonoring their families, and arrests are rare. But Bano Bibi’s defiant last words were caught on video.
Papua New Guinea
A video has gone viral of a young woman being physically and verbally attacked on the Papua New Guinea University of Technology campus in Lae:
Video footage of the incident shows a woman walking at night with her hands covering her ears while a group of men surround her, shouting and jeering.
Despite being escorted by two security guards, she is physically attacked multiple times by men in the crowd, and attempts to fight them off.
Regional
Thirty years ago, the presence of women workers in the power plants in the Marshall Islands wasn't just unusual, it was rare. But now:
Fast-forward to 2025, and five women engineers from Fiji are working for the Marshall Islands Energy Company in Majuro across multiple departments, including the power plant, the system planning and engineering services division, and data analysis.
Do Australia and New Zealand have a gender-based extremism problem? A new study reveals the disturbing scale of gender-based violent extremism festering in online spaces like 4chan.
Samoa
Weaving is central to cultural life in Samoa, and is mostly performed by women. But climate change is disrupting conditions needed for the plants used to make the intricate mats.
Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands has committed to raise the legal marriage age to 18. At the moment, someone can legally marry at 15 with parental consent, and children can be married in accordance with customary law, which provides no minimum marriage age. Around one in five girls in Solomon Islands is married before the age of 18, and this increases to one in four in rural areas.
South Korea
Young women were at the forefront of the movement which led to Yoon Suk-yeol being impeached, but many have been disillusioned by unmet demands for justice, presenting an urgent challenge for Lee Jae Myung’s new administration.
Sri Lanka
Women can now purchase alcohol in Sri Lanka from any licensed outlet, after a previous regulation was overturned.