It’s December at last! December is my favourite month. This year seems to have moved both incredibly slow and bizarrely fast.
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-Kate
Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s peace negotiations are a test for the world’s commitments to women, peace and security.
Australia
Home-based garment workers - known as ‘outworkers’ - are vulnerable to exploitation. Ghet Ky is one such outworker, sewing from her garage for the past 25 years.
Migrant women and their struggles with GBV in Australia.
How the family court’s purpose - to protect children - got turned upside down.
Service providers say 2020 has been the worst year on record for GBV cases in Australia.
Related: A list of all the girls and women known to have been killed in Australia in 2020.
Bangladesh
A new all-female police team has been formed to fight online gender-based violence.
Is a Bangladesh free of violence imaginable?
Bhutan
Bhutan’s female vegetable sellers have been struggling during COVID-19.
China
China’s LGBTQ+ community are using the national census as an opportunity to be recorded as living in same-sex relationships.
India
The COVID-19 work from home trend has actually benefited many women in India.
Indonesia
Transgender influencer Millen Cyrus was arrested last week on drug charges in Jakarta, and was originally jailed in a men’s cell until public outrage forced the police to shift her to a private cell.
Bali’s Udayana University has been rocked by accusations of sexual violence from 22 different students.
Meet some of the women involved in the weaving protests of the anti-mining movement in Mollo, West Timor.
Japan
Suicide rates among young women in Japan and South Korea have suddenly increased during the pandemic.
Malaysia
A new community is teaching women refugees to read and write.
Nepal
Women’s rights activists are questioning the deterrent effect of the death penalty for cases of GBV.
Online gender-based violence is uncommon in Nepal, but its impact on victims is severe nonetheless.
North Korea
Christina Kim risked everything to escape North Korea’s entrenched gender violence.
Pakistan
Fatima Bhojani writes about how it feels to be a woman in Pakistan:
When I step outside, I step into a country of men who stare. I could be making the short walk from my car to the bookstore or walking through the aisles at the supermarket. I could be wrapped in a shawl or behind two layers of face mask. But I will be followed by searing eyes, X-raying me. Because here, it is culturally acceptable for men to gape at women unblinkingly, as if we are all in a staring contest that nobody told half the population about, a contest hinged on a subtle form of psychological violence.
The First Church of Eunuchs is the only church for transgender Christians in Pakistan. “Eunuch” is a term often used for transgender women in South Asia, though some consider it derogatory. The church’s pastor and co-founder, Ghazala Shafique, said she chose the name to make a point, citing at length verses from the Bible saying eunuchs are favored by God.
Meet Nisha Rao, Pakistan’s first transgender lawyer.
A Pakistani woman has accused the national cricket captain Babar Azam of sexually exploiting her for 10 years.
Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia.
Papua New Guinea
Women are taking the lead in a new mangrove replanting project in PNG’s Central Province.
The Philippines
The author of a bill to decriminalise abortions in the Philippines argues that it will save lives.
A Filipino survivor of World War II-era sexual slavery tells her own story.
Regional
Top brands have been linked to rape and other abuses in palm oil plantations across Southeast Asia, according to an AP investigation.
Women journalists are facing growing threats both online and offline.
Global Citizen has a list of five Pacific activists changing the world in 2020.
South Korea
From his bedroom, Cho Ju-bin, 25, spun illusions and masterminded one of the most notorious sex crime schemes to shake South Korea in years. He blackmailed dozens of young women into providing sexually compromising images and videos, which he sold to tens of thousands of his users via Telegram.
Thailand
Meet the women of the Buku Football Club, a southern Thai club of predominantly Muslims and lesbians.
One of Thailand’s youth protest leaders, 21-year-old Panusaya ‘Rung’ Sithijirawattanakul, was hiding out in a hotel when police came to arrest her.
Vietnam
Five out of six people working in the conservation sector in Vietnam say that they have directly experienced some form of sexual harassment in their work environment.