In The News

Kids Born Abroad to Singapore Women to Inherit Citizenship

Joan Ho May 14, 2004
Up until this month, Singaporean women living overseas could not pass citizenship rights onto their children born out-of-country – only men were given this privilege. Children of expatriate women were forced to apply for citizenship. Yet as more Singaporean men and women leave the country to work and study, the government is amending the constitution to make citizenship rights more gender-...

Saudi Women Get the Vote

Brian Whitaker March 10, 2004
For the first time, municipal elections are set to take place in Saudi Arabia. The elections alone stand as an important sign of Saudi Arabia's increasing democratization, but even more surprisingly, women will be able vote in these elections. Women's activities are highly restricted in the Saudi kingdom, but in recent years many have managed to gain a foothold in business affairs –...

Women's Work: Globalization's Mixed Blessings

Erika Kinetz February 21, 2004
Women are generally preferred over men as workers in garment factories, presumably because of their "nimble fingers" and their perceived docility. In Cambodia and Bangladesh, an overwhelming majority of workers in garment factories are women. However, a study conducted by Oxfam International, a global relief agency, found that with multinational companies increasingly cutting down wages...

Interviews Deter Thousands of Chinese Brides

Cody Yiu February 5, 2004
In September, the Taiwanese government began interviewing Chinese citizens attempting to enter Taiwan on marriage visas. The program has successfully identified hundreds of fake marriages, and may have made the job of Chinese "snakeheads", or people smugglers, more difficult. Many snakeheads traffic in young girls, who have a harder time passing the entrance interviews. Some snakeheads...

Australia Tips in with Bt250m to Help with People Trafficking in ASEAN

Jim Pollard December 18, 2003
Trafficking in humans brings thousands of people against their will from Southeast Asia to Australia each year to serve as sex workers or virtual slaves. To help prevent such gross human rights abuses at the source, Australia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Thailand and other countries in the region and promised to devote 8.5 million Australian dollars to an anti-trafficking...

Japan's Mating Culture Extends Baby Drought

David Turner December 9, 2003
The world population will rise to slightly over 9 billion people within the next century. Yet Japan and many European countries face possibly catastrophic population declines. Strikingly low birthrates don’t only threaten economic growth and domestic familial dynamics, but could provoke "shifts in the political weights of countries in the international arena." Concern is so great...

Africa: Gender Inequality Fuels AIDS Crisis

December 3, 2003
Agencies trying to curb the AIDS crisis in Africa need to expand their approach, argues Human Rights Watch. There is a crucial link between gender inequality and the spread of AIDS. Sexual assault, the use of rape as a mechanism of war, the cultural acceptance of domestic violence, and women's lack of voice have kept women at the mercy of the disease in Africa. On that continent, women are...