Women's Rights in the News

Early morning on October 26, 2008, security officials at Imam Khomeini Airport confiscated the passport of Sussan Tahmasebi, women’s rights defender and member of the One Million Signatures Campaign, preventing her from travel.

In a letter addressed to the Head of the Judiciary in Iran, Amnesty International deplored the latest arrest of a woman's rights activist and the continuing harassment of others who were prevented from leaving the country.

A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life, a witness has told the BBC.

Somali Islamists have stoned to death a woman accused of adultery in the first such public killing by the militants for about two years, witnesses said.

Israel may be gearing up for its second woman Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, but a bus company is refusing to put up posters of female contestants vying for city council elections.

Kadima intends to introduce a bill to legalize civil marriage in Israel, the faction's chairwoman Tzipi Livni announced late Wednesday night.

The Foreign Ministry has instructed local organisers of a dialogue on peace to withdraw their invitation to Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Britain's highest court has criticised Islamic law for discriminating against women after a case in which a mother was forced to flee the Middle East for Britain to protect her son from his abusive father.

Women should not need the permission of two doctors to have an abortion, top medical law and ethics specialists say.

Catholic women seeking to be priests took their campaign near the Vatican today, chanting slogans and accusing the Vatican of "injustice" and "sexism."

South Sudan's government has expressed outrage after police in the capital, Juba, arrested more than 30 women for wearing tight trousers or short skirts.

Girls as young as 10 are being forced to have sex by their teachers to pass exams, and threatened with poor grades if they refuse, according to a report on school violence published by aid agency Plan.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has given instructions to its staff in several African nations to no longer provide US funded contraception supplies to Marie Stopes International (MSI). MSI is one of the largest family planning organizations in the world.

Rwanda's parliament, the first in the world with a female majority, voted a woman legislator as speaker on Monday.

A psychologist in a Congo hospital says decades of war have produced a rape-friendly culture with a double standard, Dominique Soguel reports. While perpetrators go unpunished the victims, including children, are ostracized. Amnesty International has issued a new warning.

At least 300 women are victims of sexual violence every year in Bamako, according to local police records, but the actual figure is much higher said the president of the Bamako-based non-profit, Women in Law and Development in Africa.

Press Release: At the European Social Forum in Malmo, Sweden, 4 teenagers will be crucified on 4 metre high crosses of copper.

The Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) international solidarity network has welcomed the amendment by Iranian lawmakers of the contentious family law proposal, saying it marks a major victory for Iranian women's rights activists.

The Haredi sect has launched an aggressive campaign against the secular lifestyles of women in Jerusalem.

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the six-month prison sentences which a Tehran court has passed on four cyber-feminists.