ERREKUNDA, Gambia — Lawmakers in Gambia on Monday rejected, for now, an attempt to repeal a ban on female genital cutting, which would make the West African nation the first country anywhere to make that reversal. Activists in the largely Muslim country had warned that lifting the ban would hurt years of work against a … Read more
MEXICO CITY — Women across Latin America are bathing their city streets in purple on Friday in commemoration of International Women’s Day at a time when gender rights advocates in the region face both historic steps forward and major setbacks. Following decades of activism and campaigning by feminist groups, access to things like abortion has … Read more
BARCELONA, Spain — Spain’s Catalonia region rolled out a pioneering women’s health initiative this week that offers reusable menstruation products for free. About 2.5 million women, girls, transgender and nonbinary people who menstruate can receive one menstrual cup, one pair of underwear for periods and two packages of cloth pads at local pharmacies in northeast … Read more
PARIS — A bill to enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in the French Constitution goes to a historic vote on Monday, as lawmakers gathered for a joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles on Monday. The measure was promised by President Emmanuel Macron following a rollback of abortion rights in court … Read more
DAVOS, Switzerland — Israel’s president and the head of ChatGPT company OpenAI will make appearances at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, the third day of the annual gathering of elites at the Swiss resort of Davos that discusses everything from conflict to computers and climate. Israeli President Isaac Herzog could seek to return focus … Read more
LONDON — British Home Secretary James Cleverly was under fire Sunday for joking about date rape just hours after announcing plans to crack down on what he had dubbed a “perverse” offense. Cleverly, who oversees national security and law enforcement in England and Wales, faced a call to step down after he reportedly joked at … Read more
JERUSALEM — A man hiding in a pit during the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on an outdoor music festival in Israel said he heard someone nearby screaming she was being raped. Elsewhere in the area, a combat paramedic saw the body of a young woman with her legs open, her pants pulled down, and what … Read more
BEIRUT — Gaza has always been a small, crowded space with hardly any exits. Now the world for Palestinians there has shrunk to the size of whatever refuge they can find. The strip is 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by some 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide. More than a month into the war, Israeli troops … Read more
PARIS — Activists wearing masks depicting President Emmanuel Macron urged France on Thursday to change its position and endorse a law proposed by the European Union that would define rape as sex without consent in the bloc’s 27 countries. The demonstrators gathered in downtown Paris on the eve of International Day for the Elimination of … Read more
ISLAMABAD — Online abuse and hate speech targeting politically active women in Afghanistan has significantly increased since the Taliban took over the country in Aug. 2021, according to a report released Monday by a U.K.-based rights group. Afghan Witness, an open-source project run by the non-profit Center for Information Resilience, says it found that abusive … Read more