Good morning!
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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Love and solidarity,
- Kate
Afghanistan
A women-run radio station in Afghanistan’s northeast has been shut down for playing music during Ramadan, a Taliban official said:
Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only women-run station and started 10 years ago. It has eight staff, six of them female. …
Station head Najia Sorosh denied there was any violation, saying there was no need for the closure and called it a conspiracy. The Taliban “told us that you have broadcast music. We have not broadcast any kind of music,” she said.
Women who were divorced under prior government fear for their status, as they worry they could be considered adulterers until Taliban law.
Male students have trickled back to their classes after universities reopened in Afghanistan following a winter break, but women remain barred.
For women, the motivation to leave Afghanistan has increased tremendously since the Taliban takeover. But the journey abroad has become more difficult and dangerous, too.
Australia
In the 1970s, the Whitlam government gave Australians no-fault divorce, women’s refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution, argues a professor of history.
The state of New South Wales has had a change of government, and half of the new cabinet is made up of women. Progress!
Bangladesh
In 1971, the Pakistan army began a brutal crackdown against Bengalis in which hundreds of thousands of women were detained and repeatedly brutalised. Only now are their stories beginning to be told.
Since 2013, Bangladesh had been providing free treatment to HIV-positive mothers under its Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission programme. It’s working: 95% of Bangladeshi mothers in treatment for HIV give birth to HIV-negative babies.
China
China has launched its first official guidance on combatting sexual harassment in the workplace. Predictably, it has been met with a mixed response.
Cook Islands
Cook Islands women discuss what IWD means to them and how gender equality can be better supported locally, including through sport.
Fiji
The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement has launched a report which exposes the inequities women and girls face in terms of paid work, unpaid household work and leisure time. Unsurprisingly, women do more domestic work and have less free time.
India
Misogyny in the matrimonial market: Data shows Indian men prefer wives without jobs.
Indonesia
Indonesia is home to the largest number of higher education institutions (around 4,500) and students (around 7 million) in Southeast Asia. A few months prior to enacting the landmark 2022 Sexual Violence Crimes Law, the Indonesian government issued the 2021 Education Ministry Regulation on Sexual Violence Prevention and Redress in Higher Education, but implementation has been slow.
Nothing is off limits: meet Sakdiyah Maruf, a fearless female comic visiting Australia.
Malaysia
The federal government is expected to table in June the proposed amendment to enable foreign-born children of Malaysian mothers to automatically gain Malaysian citizenship.
Stalking an individual (both online and offline) will soon be gazetted into law as a criminal offence after the Dewan Rakyat passed amendments to the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code at the end of March.
The Maldives
The Maldives are 99% water, so why can so few teenagers swim? A lack of swimming skills among young people, especially girls, stops them working in local industries and getting involved in conservation.
Myanmar
Soccer is empowering Burmese migrant girls on the Thai border: Sports programs run by the organization PlayOnside offer girls and young women displaced by Myanmar’s civil war an escape from patriarchal social expectations.
Meet Tasmida Johar, India’s first female graduate from the Rohingya community.
New Zealand
Where has New Zealand’s women, peace and security agenda gone?
Pakistan
At least 11 women and children have been killed in a deadly stampede at a Ramadan food and cash distribution centre in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, as the country struggles with surging food prices.
A long read: In 1996, a court case between a father and daughter asked: Could Pakistani women choose their own husbands?
And at the back [of the court]: a police guard at her side, a seated, young, hijab-wearing woman of 22. The turbaned men were there to support her father, the bearded man at the front, who had taken his daughter and her husband to court for marrying without his permission.
Pakistan is struggling to control its rapidly growing population. Health professionals and activists say the influence of religious clerics, a patriarchal society and lack of access to contraception are behind the rise.
The Philippines
Women in the Philippines are finally making inroads in basketball after decades of struggling to be seen.
On ‘dreanweavers’, women weavers in Mindanao who turn their dreams into woven fabric.
Close to a quarter of a million Filipino women are dying yearly due to non-communicable diseases, according to a group of health advocates.
Regional
From Bogotá to Dhaka, women are likely to shoulder the bulk of chores and childcare. Six women talk about their duties and the challenge of shifting the burden now and for the next generation.
Beyond COP27: Pacific women leaders on why women and girls must be included in climate solutions.
South Korea
Gender, rather than race or age or immigration status, has become the country’s sharpest social fault line. The Atlantic takes a look at why more women don’t want to have children. Meanwhile, proposals to improve birthrates - from foreign maids to no military service - have sparked accusations of modern-day slavery and gender inequality.
The women of South Korea’s 4B movement aren’t fighting the patriarchy — they’re leaving it behind entirely. Take a look at their idea for a world without men:
4B is shorthand for four Korean words that all start with bi-, or “no”: The first no, bihon, is the refusal of heterosexual marriage. Bichulsan is the refusal of childbirth, biyeonae is saying no to dating, and bisekseu is the rejection of heterosexual sexual relationships. It is both an ideological stance and a lifestyle.
Thailand
Thailand is often hailed as a haven for transgender people, but the country still has a long way to go until stigma and discrimination are overcome.