Some stories from around the world…
In India, one village plants fruit trees to celebrate the birth of a girl…and to give her a dowry/savings account later in life.
The Economist’s perspective on maternal health in Mexico and other developing countries: basically, contraception and midwives are good, but infrastructure and general spending on health are better.
Some areas of Australia moving to criminalize prostitution.
Is Saudi Arabia (slightly, slowly) liberalizing?
The Malaysian government is promoting female Muslim judges onto sharia courts.
In Kenyan slums, women are raped when they try to use the toilets.
NPR talks about the U.S.’s abysmal record on prison rape.
Many of the women in prison in Afghanistan are there because of “moral crimes” or “bad character.”
In China, after thugs who are believed to be associated with the police raped and killed a young woman, men who posted information online to try to help her family’s quest for justice were arrested.
BBC talks to women who were raped during the Rwandan genocide and conceived, and their children.This Nigerian woman is in charge of fighting corruption in the financial sector.
And finally, the BBC reports on a study that supposedly shows babies have an intrinsic bias toward certain gender-role-related toys. What do you think?
The Economist asks, “What if Arab women don’t want rights?”
Image from inju’s flickr.
To the second-to-last question, I say duh!
To the last question, I say why should we impose our Western standards of morality on other cultures?