Year: 2019

United States (Conversation) – New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft’s criminal charges in a suspected sex trafficking case in southern Florida draw new attention to this serious problem. Sex trafficking, as the federal government defines it, is “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” by means of “force, fraud, or coercion.” This is a form of modern-day slavery. Found in massage parlors, escort services, residential brothels and street prostitution, some might be victims for weeks and others for years….

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United States (FEE) – After being arrested and charged with practicing midwifery without a license last fall, a midwife in upstate New York is wondering whether or not she will go to jail for the work she has done for decades. Elizabeth Catlin is a beloved certified professional midwife (CPM) who has caught hundreds of babies in the tight-knit community of mostly-Mennonite women near her home. According to a recent in-depth article on her ordeal, the state is cracking down on her actions, which they say are illegal. Another Tale of…

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Canada (Conversation) – Last fall, a group of Indigenous women in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan brought a class-action suit against the Saskatoon Health Authority. They also sued the provincial and federal governments and some medical professionals. They asserted that some Indigenous women had been forcibly sterilized. Others had been tricked into giving consent for sterilization when they were under stress or heavily drugged. They claimed that doctors did this over several decades, up to the 2000s. The UN Committee on Torture recommended in late 2018 that the Canadian government…

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Indonesia (GV) – On February 16, 2019, the Indonesian feminist online magazine Magdalene (also a Global Voices republishing partner), launched Mango Meter, a movie review mobile application created to address gender representation in movies and film industry. As the Mango Meter team notes, the “seventh art” is one of “the most effective media to spread norms and values in society,” and movies “largely reinforce gender and racial stereotyping, sexually objectify women, and normalize gender-based violence, as the film industry insists it is only meeting market demands.” Screenshots of the Mango…

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(Conversation) – In 1635, María, a slave woman from the Indian sub-continent living in the Spanish-controlled Philippine Islands, enters the historical record. We know that women as well as men were involved in forced movements like María’s around the region but historical documentation about their lives is rarely available. María was owned by an artilleryman named Francisco de Nava who was then living in Manila. In 1635, the city’s archbishop, Don Hernando Guerrero, began an investigation into, in the words of the contemporary documents, “illicit communication” between the two. Nava…

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United States (Deceleration) –  Once again friends and supporters we come to you for prayers and support.  We are few now but represent the hopes of millions. We sleep on the ground, eat outside, use portable toilet facilities and share the weather and insects. The work we do requires walkie talkies, drones, web access and pure water. Supplies of food, water and transportation are necessary to serve. We need your help. Phase III begins NOW.  We will continue building more camps and villages and Warriors are encouraged to join us. …

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United States (Conversation) – When it comes to how deeply embedded racism is in American society, blacks and whites have sharply different views. For instance, 70 percent of whites believe that individual discrimination is a bigger problem than discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions. Only 48 percent of blacks believe that is true. Many blacks and whites also fail to see eye to eye regarding the use of blackface, which dominated the news cycle during the early part of 2019 due to a series of scandals that involve…

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Sierra Leone (Conversation) – The president of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio has declared a national emergency on rape and sexual violence following a public outcry over the high number of rapes of young girls in the West African country. According to the country’s police, there were over 8,500 reported cases of sexual and gender based violence in 2018. The number of incidents of sexual violence is likely much higher, as many cases go unreported. In 2012, the first year official police statistics were collected, 632 cases were reported. The…

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Africa (Conversation) – Women are gaining ground in politics around the world. Last year, the so-called “pink wave” saw a record number of women elected to Congress in the US’s mid-term elections. There are signs of progress in Africa, too. Last October, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was praised for his “transformative leadership” after appointing a new set of ministers – half of whom were women. Earlier in February, Egyptian lawmakers proposed amending the constitution to guarantee women 25% of the seats in the national parliament. If it’s approved, this…

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United States (Conversation) – The cost of having children in the U.S. has climbed exponentially since the 1960s. So it’s no wonder the growing crop of Democratic presidential candidates have been proposing ways to address or bring down the costs tied to raising a family. Most recently, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she wants to provide universal access to child care. According to her proposal, the U.S. would partner with local governments and other organizations to provide various child care options, paying for it with revenue from her wealth tax. Whether…

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