Solidaritas #64
Rare good news: 'Virginity testing' to end for female military recruits in Indonesia
Good morning from newly-locked down Canberra!
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Take care,
Kate
Afghanistan
As the Taliban takes control, there are no more women on the streets of Afghanistan and no-one has any idea what will happen to them.
A young female journalist describes the panic and fear of being forced into hiding as cities across Afghanistan fall:
Last week I was a news journalist. Today I can’t write under my own name or say where I am from or where I am. My whole life has been obliterated in just a few days.
How the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls.
Afghan women’s football officials are reportedly seeking asylum in India, because they are afraid the Taliban will punish them for promoting women in sport. No word on the female footballers themselves.
Australia
South Australia’s Arid Recovery pioneers conservation science to help threatened species survive. They’re strong supporters of women in science research, with 65% of their peer-reviewed papers over the past two decades featuring women as their first author.
Homeless women are some of Australia’s most ‘invisible’ vulnerable people.
Bangladesh
Shorolika Parvin, 15, captain of Bashjani Primary School football team, was forced to marry against her will. Her dream was to become Bangladesh’s best striker.
China
CCTV has been roundly criticised after a TV anchor described Gong Lijiao, an Olympic gold medallist for shot put, as a “manly woman” and asked her if she had plans for “a woman’s life”.
Hip-hop star Yang Yuzhen is striving to inspire China’s girls to stand up for gender equality. The price: a torrent of online abuse.
How do sexual harassment cases fare in China’s courts? Generally speaking: not well, with the law favouring harrassers.
China's Family Planning Association has launched a competition encouraging the public to come up with slogans to promote its three-child policy, but the appeal has been met with anger and sarcasm on social media.
Women are increasingly working in heavy physical labour jobs, such as construction and railways, due to a shortage of male workers.
An alleged sexual assault involving employees of tech giant Alibaba has many examining how women bear the burden when drinking and peer pressure are seen as key to business.
Hong Kong
The number of homeless women in Hong Kong has tripled in the past seven years but government welfare measures overwhelmingly focus on men.
India
How violence, rape and murder is used to ‘keep’ Dalits in their place.
India must push for improved women’s land rights.
47 percent of Indian women who lost their jobs last year have been made permanently redundant, leading to worries about their long-term employment prospects after the pandemic.
Indonesia
The pandemic is killing trans women in Indonesia, but not always due to COVID: many are dying from hunger and untreated health problems.
It looks like the army’s practice of ‘virginity testing’ for female recruits is finally set to end.
Malaysia
Malaysia’s sexist citizenship law is keeping trans-national families apart.
Myanmar
Since the Myanmar armed forces, or Tatmadaw, overthrew the country’s elected civilian government, revenge porn has become a weapon used by both the junta and its opponents:
…the daughter of a minister on the junta’s State Administration Council became the first well-known victim of this tactic. Explicit videos and photos of the woman were well circulated and intentionally spread by opponents of the coup. In subsequent weeks, the same thing happened to other women who were labelled as sympathizers of the military regime, or failed to speak out sufficiently in opposition to it, in what quickly became known to anti-coup protesters as “social punishment” campaigns.
How do pregnant women manage to deliver their babies when they’ve been displaced by fighting in Myanmar? Al Jazeera takes a look.
Nepal
Female divorcees continue to experience significant stigma in Nepal.
Pakistan
Gender-based violence is the result of the government’s failure to act to protect women, writes Nushmiya Sukhera for The Diplomat. Somaiyah Hafeez, also for The Diplomat, says the situation is now impossible to ignore.
Is there space for women to live alone in Pakistan?
The Philippines
Women’s group GABRIELA may be in trouble: they’ve been accused of receiving funds from international donors, reportedly against the Constitution. GABRIELA is both a mass member organisation and a political party, which is where the problem lies.
Regional
A 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who came to Japan with dreams of becoming an interpreter was sentenced in January to a prison term of a year and six months, suspended for three years:
The Nagoya District Court handed down the ruling on the woman who obtained a forged residence card to get a job and earn a living. The case reveals the difficulties faced by some foreign nationals in Japan who lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic but were unable to return to their home country.
Also in Japan: the Immigration Services Agency admitted medical care system flaws in an investigation report on the death of a Sri Lankan woman detained at an immigration facility. The report also pointed out that repeated requests for medical care from tRatnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, had not reached senior officials. She died at the facility in March at the age of 33 at the facility.
Samoa
Samoa's first female prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, sat down with The Guardian in her first sit-down interview with foreign media since taking office. (video)
Singapore
129 Singaporean women set a record for the most women simultaneously breastfeeding online as part of an initiative during International Breastfeeding Week.
Solomon Islands
Cervical cancer is the second-most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the Solomon Islands. Women remain hesitant to get tested and most swabs have to be sent overseas for laboratory testing, but a new CT facility will help improve the situation.
South Korea
Why South Korean women are cutting their hair short, and why men are furious about it and other feminist activities.
Reports say politicians in South Korea are seeking to criminalise so-called "semen terrorism" after cases of men secretly ejaculating into women’s belongings were punished for property damage.
Sri Lanka
Rates of sexual harassment are incredibly high in Sri Lanka - even higher than Nepal, India and Pakistan - and 90% of harassment reportedly occurs on public transport. One woman reflects on the situation.
On structural sexism in the Sri Lankan police force.