This No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) news digest rounds up some of the week’s top FGM & Women’s Rights stories for the week ending 23 April:
Her Feminism Is His Too: 5 Men Fighting For Women’s Rights in India
The Better India, 23 Apr 2019
It is a common expression to raise daughters like sons, but how often do you hear parents proudly stating that they would raise their sons like daughters? Gendered behavioural patterns, like ‘boys don’t cry’, or ‘girls are meant to be weak and sensitive’ stem from patriarchy. These distorted notions of weakness have been hurting not just our women, but our men as well.
Trump Fed Board pick under fire for writing that women should not be allowed to be men’s sports referees — unless they’re good-looking
The Washington Post, 22 Apr 2019
Stephen Moore, one of President Trump’s planned nominees for the Federal Reserve Board, wrote columns decrying the “feminization of basketball,” denouncing coed sports and arguing that women should be barred from refereeing or covering men’s basketball games — unless they are good-looking. Moore also wrote that female athletes were seeking “equal pay for inferior work” and lamented, “Is there no area in life where men can take vacation from women?”
Iran: Release women’s rights defenders detained for peacefully protesting against forced veiling
Amnesty International, 18 Apr 2019
Iranian authorities must stop harassing, arresting and imprisoning women’s rights defenders peacefully protesting against Iran’s degrading and discriminatory forced veiling laws, and release those detained on this basis immediately and unconditionally, said Amnesty International today. The organization has confirmed that two women’s rights defenders, Yasmin Aryani and Monireh Arabshahi, have been detained in the past week and that a third activist, Vida Movahedi, who has been detained since October 2018, was sentenced to one year in prison last month for peacefully protesting against forced veiling.
Hearing postponed for ‘private reasons’ in trial of 11 Saudi women
The Guardian, 17 Apr 2019
A hearing in the trial of several prominent Saudi women’s rights activists has been postponed, despite intense scrutiny of the case from the kingdom’s western partners. The fourth hearing in the trial of 11 activists including Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef was cancelled at the last minute on Wednesday, a court official told some of the women’s relatives, according to Reuters. The official cited a judge who gave “private reasons” for the postponement and no new date for the hearing was set.
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