Hello,
The cool and rainy summer continues here in south-eastern Australia. It’s very strange. It reminded me of when I lived in Nepal (2011) and my housemates and I went on a misty monsoon-season hike. Today’s header photo is from that hike, when we were waiting to hitch a ride from somewhere between Kathmandu and Pokhara.
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-Kate
Australia
Federal government staffer Brittany Higgins has alleged she was raped in the office of senior government minister Linda Reynolds inside Parliament House in 2019. She says she did not make a formal complaint because she wanted to protect her job and the reputation of the Liberal Party.
Queensland state government has announced it will appoint an independent taskforce to consult on coercive control legislation.
How a white family discovered and began to reckon with their historical involvement in Aboriginal slavery.
It is thought that more than 50,000 women born overseas but living in Australia have undergone FGM/C at some point.
Bangladesh
How can Bangladesh be made safer for women?
Burma
19-year-old Mya Thwe Thwe Kaing was shot in the head while protesting against Burma’s military coup last week. She is now in a critical condition in hospital, and is not expected to survive.
China
The Chinese government is launching new education programs to try to make men more manly.
Why female rappers have become the most exciting voices in Chinese music.
China has confirmed that detained Australian journalist Cheng Lei is accused of leaking state secrets.
China’s birthrate fell about 15% in 2020. Changing attitudes around marriage is said to be a major cause behind the drop.
Fiji
The average age of sexual violence victim-survivors for the past five years in Fiji is under 17 years, while the age of the youngest victim-survivors continue to be under the age of five years old, according to FWRM’s Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls Rape Case Analysis 2020.
Fiji has launched a women’s super league for soccer.
Hong Kong
HK police’s handling of pregnant women has come under question after incidences of violent arrests.
India
Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit garment worker at an H&M supplier Natchi Apparels in Tamil Nadu was found dead in January, allegedly murdered by her supervisor. Her family said she had suffered months of sexual harassment and intimidation on the factory floor in the months before her death, but felt powerless to prevent the abuse from continuing.
Nearly a decade since the gang rape and murder of Nirbhaya, Indian state spending to combat violence against women and girls is “grossly inadequate”, says Oxfam India:
Funds earmarked for setting up helplines, opening crisis centres and introducing gender-sensitisation training for officials remain unspent, the charity said in a report analysing the country’s budgetary commitment to boosting women’s safety.
Women will bear the brunt of India’s new farm laws.
Indonesia
The government has issued a joint ministerial decree banning public schools from prescribing religious attire following controversy over a public school in Padang that had made hijabs mandatory for all female students.
A criminal investigation has been launched against wedding planner Aisha Weddings, after a complaint was lodged by the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI). Its promotional material asked prospective brides and their families to “get married” at 12-21 years of age “to be pleasing to Allah and your husband”.
Japan
Two Vietnamese women have been arrested in Japan for abandoning their newborn babies. Both women said they feared losing their jobs if their employers found out about the pregnancies.
Could Japan elect a female Prime Minister soon?
Tens of thousands of Japanese women who married Korean men between the 1950s and 1980s ended up moving to North Korea, never able to return to Japan to see their families.
Period poverty has come under scrutiny, as have increasing rates of poverty among single mothers.
The Tokyo Olympics chief has resigned after making sexist comments, such as that women talk too much in meetings. Naomi Osaka labelled his comments ‘ignorant’.
Malaysia
A Mongolian woman is crowdfunding to take her sexual assault case against a policeman to court in Malaysia. It is believed to be the first time that an online crowdfunding campaign has been attempted in relation to pursue sexual assault charges.
A female driver has alleged that a traffic policeman stopped her at a roadblock and asked her to lift her shirt to show him her breasts, or risk being fined.
New Zealand
Gymnastics NZ has apologised for past abuses. How does it plan to make amends?
Pakistan
On futsal for girls in Pakistan.
As in many countries, a new report shows that Pakistan’s incidence of domestic violence increased significantly during the pandemic.
Papua New Guinea
We cannot mistake tribal massacres for tradition. More must be done to combat these violent and often fatal incidences.
Patriarchy and corrupt political practices are hindering female participation in PNG politics.
The Philippines
Filipina migrant workers in Syria tell their stories of imprisonment, abuse, and rape.
Regional
This essay is a really fascinating exploration of a writer’s grandmother, who left Pakistan for India during partition, before marrying and moving to Malaysia.
Women drowned themselves to avoid being raped, their bloated bodies floating through contaminated, blood-stained rivers. The acrid scent of death and destruction embedded itself into the nations’ topography.
My grandmother, however, never spoke of any of this. When asked about Partition, she would answer just that “bad things happened”. If probed further, she would simply ignore the question or change the topic. So we seldom asked.
The Asian Football Confederation has been found guilty of gender discrimination, interference and denial of justice.
Women’s land rights are crucial to fighting climate change.
A complex discussion on international law and how it applies to the South Korean women forced to become Japanese sex slaves during WWII.
Thailand
Female protest leaders have successfully connected the movement’s political demands to a deeper critique of Thailand’s patriarchal social norms.
Thailand’s parliament has passed changes to the country’s criminal code, giving women full abortion rights in the first trimester. But pro-choice groups say that the amendments do not go far enough, and that the government needs to do more to raise awareness and expand access.
Vietnam
A cool story about female dragon dancers in Vietnam:
As a Taekwondo black belt, Quyen already had the agility and power to excel at the dance, which has been performed for centuries — largely by men — in Vietnam and other parts of Asia.
But to join, she had to overcome resistance from the local community, who said it was too challenging for a woman.