Solidaritas #98
Meet the Pakistani women fighting period taboos
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.
Please note: the name Aotearoa New Zealand will now be used in this newsletter to reflect growing decolonisation movement there.
Today’s header image comes from Jiwaka in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The Highlands have some of the most stunning views I’ve ever seen.
If you like Solidaritas, I’d be thrilled if you chose to support the newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber. It’s just US$5/month or even cheaper at US$40/year:
Love and solidarity,
- Kate
Afghanistan
Nearly 80 girls were poisoned and hospitalized in two separate attacks at their primary schools in northern Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s denial of Afghan women’s rights could constitute gender persecution, meaning the Taliban could be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC), say Amnesty International and the International Commission for Jurists.
Aotearoa New Zealand
For the first time, Aotearoa New Zealand’s 2023 budget uses a gender lens.
A group of strip club dancers is taking its industrial relations fight to parliament, pushing for reform that has the potential to improve conditions for all gig workers across Aotearoa.
Australia
Under state government legislation until 1969, hundreds of First Nations girls in New South Wales were forced to live at the former Cootamundra Girls' Home, about two hours drive from Canberra. Aunty Lorraine Peeters recalls her horrific experience of being snatched from her family and taken to the home, where she was ‘trained’ to become a servant. Now she runs a program to help other First Nations people to work through and overcome similar trauma.
More than 900 Indigenous women met in Canberra in early May for a First Nations gender conference, the first of its kind in Australia. The conference will help design the establishment of the First Nations Gender Justice Institute, based at the Australian National University.
A survey has found that 57% of young women in Australia are finding it more difficult to pay for menstrual products than in previous years.
Australian women and children held in a Syrian detention camp will take the Australian government to court in an attempt to compel the government to bring them home:
Seventeen Australian women and nine children – the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters – held in the Roj camp in north-east Syria, will file a writ of habeas corpus in the federal court on Monday morning, arguing that Australia has “effective control” of their detention and the power to set them free.
The group members are all Australian citizens and argue they have a legal right to return to Australia.
Transgender Australians seeking gender affirmation surgery on their lower body can go to just a handful of local surgeons. It means long waits, huge costs and difficult decisions.
China
China has a huge problem with human trafficking, making the government’s claims of gender equality ring hollow.
India
A 16-year-old girl was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in New Delhi, yet no-one passing by did anything to help, not even to call the police.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, after a decade of delays and threats, Amena was the last of seven rape survivors resolved to fight. The guilty verdict for her rapists has been welcomed by Muslims facing increasing discrimination in India. The two men who raped her (a third man died before trial) were sentenced to 20 years in jail; momentous, because this is the first conviction for one of the gang-rapes which occurred during the 2013 communal riots that left more than 60 people dead and hundreds homeless.
Related: an incredible, strong personal story entitled ‘In India’s Gang Rape Culture, All Women Are Victims’.
How an NGO is training Blind women to detect breast cancer as medical tactile examiners, who can detect “lumps as tiny as 6-8mm, as opposed to the larger, 10-20mm ones sighted physicians are able to find”:
The most satisfying part of Ritika Maurya’s work is reassuring the anxious. “Women fear coming for breast examinations,” says Maurya. “What if a lump is found in my breast? Will that be the end of my life? These are some of the questions that haunt them all the time.”
Maurya is, she says, “still learning to be good at this”. As a blind child, she had a sheltered upbringing with protective parents who rarely let her leave the house.
Now aged 23, she is a trainee medical tactile examiner (MTE) at Enable India, a disability rights organisation in the southern city of Bengaluru – part of a project where visually impaired women are taught to use touch to detect breast lumps or changes that might mean a lurking cancer.
A really interesting look at the rise of female-headed households as a result of male migration:
Economists and demographers understand the term head of the household to refer to someone who earns money and has authority to take decisions in the family. In case of married women, when husbands migrate and do not live at home for six months or more, women are counted as the head of household. These are often self declared.
It's a story repeating itself across villages and small towns of India where distress-related migration by men is leading to an opportunity for women.
Indonesia
A police officer has been named a suspect in the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Central Sulawesi, following the arrest of two other suspects, who fled to Kalimantan, this past weekend.
Konde.co has given voice to marginalized women and minority groups since 2016. Founded by an activist and female journalist, the media organization is often the target of threats and has struggled with various difficulties. (video)
In a bid to address the challenges and discrimination faced by women in the workplace, Indonesia’s Minister of Manpower has called upon businesses to prioritise inclusive work environments, following findings from the February 2023 National Work Force Survey, which revealed a significant gap in women’s labour force participate rate (54.42%) compared to men’s (83.98%).
Japan
The Japanese government will set a target of having women occupy at least 30% of executive positions at top companies by 2030, advancing a goal laid out by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The target would apply to companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's blue chip Prime market.
Myanmar
Myanmar Press Photo Agency journalist Hmu Yadanar Khat Moh Moh Tun has been sentenced to an additional ten years of prison time, bringing her total sentence to 13 years. She had previously been founded guilty of inciting and disseminating false news; now, she’s been sentenced to hard labour for supposed terror financing. (via Splice)
Civil activism in Myanmar against the military junta is led by women. Despite overwhelming odds, they are beginning to have impact.
Nepal
Same-sex marriage has been on the cards for years, but progress has been slow. Is Nepal ready?
Pakistan
Working conditions have gone from bad to worse for the women in Pakistan’s agricultural sector after the 2022 floods.
Also on the floods: How were the 8.2 million women of reproductive age living in the flood-affected areas managing their menstrual needs? Meet some of the Pakistani women fighting for menstrual taboos.
Rabia Shahzad resisted family pressure and defied societal taboos to become a weightlifter. Now, she wants other women to take up sport professionally. (video)
Some bad news: The Federal Shariat Court Islamabad has ruled that sections of the Transgender Act 2018 are against Islamic teachings. The judge determined that Islamic teachings do not allow individuals to change their gender at their own will. The verdict further maintained that an individual’s gender shall remain the same as assigned at birth. Read Amnesty International’s response here.
Papua New Guinea
A female student of UPNG relates how unsafe it is to be a woman on the streets of in Port Moresby.
The Philippines
On May 3, 2022, Elizabeth “Loi” Magbanua left her home in Manila. Loi has been a grassroots union and women’s rights organizer since the 1980s. On that day, she was joining with other labor organizers for a meeting. After the meeting, Loi and another colleague left the meeting at 7pm in the evening. Then they disappeared, and to this day they have not been found. (via
A court has dismissed one of two remaining drug charges against former senator Leila de Lima. She was arrested in 2017 and accused of taking drug money just a few months after announcing a Senate investigation into then-President Duterte’s so-called “war on drugs”.
Regional
The importance of access to finances (including savings) for female migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.
How women are changing the face of the church across the Pacific. (podcast)
Women’s economic empowerment has been found to reduce gender-based violence in the Pacific, a new ADB report writes.
Singapore
President Halimah Yacob will not re-contest the 2023 elections. (via We, the Citizens)
South Korea
Since President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s election one year ago, the feminist and men’s rights movements have clashed repeatedly over women’s rights. What is behind this gender war? (video)
South Korea is grappling with twin problems: its population is ageing rapidly (yet the fertility rate is just 0.78 children for every woman of child-bearing age), and workers are grinding themselves to the bone. In the search for solutions, the government recently proposed extending the work week to create greater flexibility for families, but women say the move would only further entrench traditional gender roles.
Taiwan
Taiwan’s last known survivor of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, who did not want her name made public and so was referred to by the media simply as “grandma”, has died at the age of 92. In Taiwan, which Japan ruled from 1895 to 1945, nearly 60 women had come forward over the years as survivors, according to Taipei’s Women’s Rescue Foundation, which estimates there were at least 2,000.
Thailand
The frontrunner to be Thailand's next prime minister, Pita Limjaroenrat, joined a Pride parade in Bangkok on Sunday, promising to pass a law that would allow same-sex marriage and gender identity rights if he becomes PM:
"Once the government is formed we will support Marriage Equality (Act), Gender Identity (Act) and several others, including welfare," Pita told reporters at the parade. "These few things will make the celebration of diversity in Pride Month into pride always."
Vietnam
Police have arrested Hoang Thi Minh Hong, a prominent environmental activist, alongside her husband and former staff members of her NGO, Change. She has been accused of tax evasion; critics say the charges are politically motivated.