March 8 was International Women’s Day and, as usual, there was a sudden rise in news items that feature women, some of which will be featured in this week’s Friday Links. At the same time, women around the world were involved in protests. A few dozen Iraqi women took to the streets to demonstrate against the new draft law, that would permit the marriage of girls as young as nine and automatically give child custody to the father. Thousands of Lebanese women took to the streets to demand that the government finally approve the country’s first law against domestic violence. In Turkey too, women took to the streets to demand attention to the problem of domestic violence. Dozens of Algerian women marked this day with a demonstration to remember the hundreds of women killed by Islamists during the 1990s. In Iran, for the first time in five years, people were permitted to celebrate International Women’s Day, and many women activists used this opportunity to urge the current regime to do more to address discrimination against women in the country. A religious leader in Tajikistan spoke out against International Women’s Day (re-branded Mother’s Day in 2009), claiming this is neither a religious nor a national holiday and therefore inadmissible.

The war in Syria has shattered the health care system, and for women, medical assistance is now almost non-existent, which has lead to a rise in maternal and infant deaths.

Despite the dangers associated with the work and the relatively low pay, a growing number of women are venturing into the media sector in Pakistan, hoping that their voices will be heard.

According to a report by campaign group Justice for Iran, which reviews 35 years of the Iranian female dress code, at least 30,000 women and girls were arrested in the last decade for violating the rules of dress.

A Crimean Tatar woman during an anti-war rally in Bakhchisaray, Crimea. Tatars make up around 13% of the population in the Crimea and are, considering their history, wary of the Russian regime. Image by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters.

Tunisian sex workers demand that their brothel in the coastal town of Sousse be reopened, so they won’t have to beg for charity.

The autonomous state of Puntland has outlawed the practice of Female Genital Mutilation; an estimated 70 percent of the women in Somali region have undergone FGM.

Statistics show that Lebanese women are still victims of social, political and economic discrimination.

An estimated third of Syria’s Kurdish fighters are women, as determined as their male counterparts to topple the Assad-regime and ensure the future of their people.

A Moroccan woman has been sentenced to ten years imprisonment for killing her alleged rapist, who abused her for several years.

Although most reports on female Syrian refugees focus on Lebanon and Jordan, female refugees in Turkey also face exploitation, early marriage and sexual harassment.

Women outnumber men in medical colleges across Pakistan, but only half of these women will end up working in the medical field, due to the many obstacles they face.

The Tajik capital Dushanbe now has an all-female police unit, which patrols the city on bikes, and which will mainly concern itself with issues that mainly affect women, such as domestic abuse. [Read more...]