Author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon discusses the challenges facing Afghan businesswomen.
Kai Ryssdal: Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with his NATO colleagues on Afghanistan today. There's too much talk about leaving Afghanistan, Gates said, not enough talk about getting the job done right.
In Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia, and elsewhere, women have stood with men pushing for change. In Libya, Iman and Salwa Bagaighif are helping lead, shape, and support protesters. And in Egypt, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, one of the oldest and most well-known non-governmental organizations in Egypt, estimated that at least 20 percent of the protesters were women.
Burma's newly formed Parliament has a total of 659 elected members. Of these, 20 are women. National Democratic Force (NDF) MP Khin Waing Kyi, 64, talked with Mizzima reporter Phanida about her role in Parliament, women MPs and the topics and issues women can bring to the debates and actions in the new lawmaking body. No women have been appointed or elected to serve as ministers in Burma's new government.
Your Excellencies, the Ministers
Special Representative of UN Secretary-General
Your Excellencies the Ambassadors
Generous Members of the House of Representatives
On Jan. 10, Afghanistan's Council of Ministers, at its regular weekly meeting, decided that women's shelters needed to be brought under government control, reflecting a long-simmering discontent with women's shelters in Afghanistan. It's a discontent fanned by a media campaign spearheaded by right-wing broadcaster and ideologue, Nasto Naderi, who has pushed the idea that shelters are simply fronts for prostitution.
Soon after the launch of the US-led war in 2003, Iraq witnessed the emergence of a violent conflict and the deepening of splits along communal, religious, confessional, tribal and ethnic lines. The resulting chaos gave rise to growing insecurity and lawlessness and an upsurge in religious extremism. A backlash against women's rights and feminist activists was seen, opening old and new avenues for discrimination and violence against women.
In August 2010, the United States marked the formal end of combat operations in Iraq with divergent assessments of the nearly eight-year war. At the closing military ceremony in Iraq, Gen.
To mark the international day of women, protesters in Sulaymanieh called for a special day for women's rights. Hundreds of women joined the usual daily crowd of protesters in the city square with many speaking from the podium about the problems Kurdish women face.
In the midst of a Middle East meltdown, in the midst of the most dangerous mayhem and madness, can a feminist and human rights revolution really be brewing in…Saudi Arabia? We know that Saudi Arabia is exceptionally barbaric towards its women and to all progressive thought. Women are not allowed to drive, and they cannot travel, accept employment, or open a bank account without the approval of a male relative.
