Good afternoon, and welcome to many new subscribers! Thank you for subscribing. 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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Enjoy this fortnight’s issue!
- Kate
Afghanistan
The Taliban’s ban on girls studying at high schools will become a de facto ban on university degrees for women if it stays in place, as girls will not have the documents needed to enrol in higher education, or the academic capacity to start university courses after nearly a year out of school.
The Taliban have asked women working at Afghanistan’s finance ministry to send a male relative to do their job a year after female public-sector workers were barred from government work and told to stay at home.
Australia
Afghan women who have newly arrived in Australia are learning new lifestyle skills: swimming and driving.
When the new federal parliament opened last week, a record number of female politicians took their seats: 38% in the House of Representatives and 57% in the Senate. This changing of the guard, with women at the forefront, brings an opportunity to accelerate Australia’s efforts on climate change.
15% of Australians seeking pregnancy counselling after unplanned pregnancies report coercive pressure that interferes with their decision making.
Bangladesh
In coastal areas of Bangladesh, where people often can’t afford menstrual pads, women and adolescent girls are compelled to use cloth rags that they wash in water that’s becoming increasingly saline, leading to uterine diseases and misuse of birth control pills in efforts to stop menstrual cycles altogether.
Bangladesh has a world-leading system to protect people from disasters, including through an army of female volunteers to better support women. What can other countries learn from it?
China
Single woman Teresa Xu wanted to freeze her eggs. The hospital refused, and the court agreed that the hospital did not violate her rights.
Chinese women currently studying abroad are an historically unique cohort:
They are largely from China’s wealthier first- and second-tier cities, and belong to China’s most highly educated generation of women. Due to the combined effects of the one-child policy and the growth of China’s middle classes since the 1980s, they have unprecedented parental resources available to them to support their studies. …
Yet a resurgent gender neo-traditionalism is causing misgivings about these women’s ambitions. The manifestations of this trend range from the mockery of women with PhDs as a sexless ‘third gender’ and the state-led disparagement of unmarried women over 27 as ‘leftover women’ to the jailing of feminist activists.
Hong Kong
A quarter of Hong Kong’s prisoners are women, a record-high percentage skewed by impoverished foreign drug mules who are often duped or coerced.
The number of marriages and births in Hong Kong plunged in 2021, with more and more young people delaying these major life choices.
India
How a women’s collective is helping save Maharashtra’s mangroves through boat safaris and edible wild plants.
A lack of toilets is causing massive health problems for India’s women.
How the children of women in prison cope with either living in prison or being separated from their mothers.
Indonesia
New research shows how Indonesia’s drug control policy victimises women and puts their health at risk.
Japan
Japan’s minister for gender equality and children’s issues called the country’s record low births and plunging population a national crisis and blamed “indifference and ignorance” in the male-dominated Japanese parliament.
Related: A new survey has found that 50% of Japanese women think work gets in the way of married life, highlighting the difficulties women face in trying to balance jobs and family.
Myanmar
Allegations of torture and sexual abuse have been put forward by Amnesty International against the military regime.
The overall situation is also taking its toll on the garment industry, particularly in relation to jobs. The ILO has estimated that 1.1 million people have lost their jobs since 2020, and in the garment industry, evidence points to an increase in casual or daily labour, irregular working hours and workers receiving lower pay.
Nepal
Are women not Nepali enough?:
Nepal citizenship is based on the principles of jus sanguinis or bloodline. While there are neither clauses attached or self-declaration needed when conferring citizenship by descent to a child of a Nepali man, the same is not true in case of a child born to a Nepali woman.
A Nepali man does not even have to mention the name or nationality of the mother for their child to get citizenship. But the mother still needs to navigate the loops of the legal system to ensure their child can obtain Nepali citizenship.
Although farmers traditionally practiced agroforestry in Nepal, they gave it up with the advent of the green revolution. A women’s group in Kavre district decided to return to agroforestry four years ago, and they are already seeing the benefits.
New Zealand
A NZ pornography producer has plead guilty to sex trafficking charges in the US. It was found that Matthew Isaac Wolfe he helped recruit women to perform in videos that were later released online without their consent.
Pakistan
Female journalists in Pakistan face a higher risk of attacks and censorship.
Family killings of women (so-called ‘honour’ killings) remain common and little is changing, say activists.
Papua New Guinea
In nearly 50 years, PNG has elected just seven female MPs. Money, culture and corruption are all working against the women trying to address the problem.
The Philippines
How a group of homegrown and foreign players is turning the Philippines national women's football team into serious contenders.
Regional
Three reasons why female leaders actually matter for women.
Special Economic Zones and self-governing statelets across the Mekong region have become conduits for human trafficking on a massive scale, especially of women and girls.
South Korea
Korean beauty brands are still struggling with ideas of sex positivity.
Meet the amateur women’s football helping South Korea overcome the stereotype that football is too competitive for women.
More Korean parents now prefer daughters over sons, a huge reversal in beliefs.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s economic crisis appears to be pushing more women into sex work due to financial problems.
Thailand
Thai ‘boy love’ television dramas are becoming very popular among women around the world, leading to hopes that they will help revive the country’s tourism industry.