Tag - womens-issues

 
 

WOMEN'S ISSUES

Ayaka Saito works on a lathe to make a part for a ship at Ena Seisakusho in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture. Saito, who has a 1-year-old child, takes comfort in the fact that her employer allows time off for workers for parenting duties.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jul 8, 2024
Special skills allow Fukushima mother to shine in full-time job
Her employer also lets her take time off to care for her child, a rare policy seen as pivotal in getting more women back to the workforce.
Protesters rally in front of the Okinawa Prefectural Government building in Naha on Thursday following recent revelations of sexual abuse cases involving U.S. servicemen in Okinawa Prefecture.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 5, 2024
Info-sharing on U.S. soldiers' crimes to improve, Kamikawa says
The central government will also strengthen measures to prevent U.S. servicemen from committing sex crimes in Japan, the foreign minister said.
Tens of thousands of young people have fled Myanmar since the military junta introduced conscription, rights groups say, to shore up its depleted ranks.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 5, 2024
'No safe place': Women flee conscription risk and hardship in Myanmar
Following the military junta's conscription, some have risked their lives to trek through jungles and ford rivers to escape.
Each week Neha Mankani comes by boat ambulance to Baba, an old fishing settlement near Karachi, and reportedly one of the world's most crowded islands with some 6,500 people crammed into 0.15 square kilometers.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 2, 2024
Midwife on the front line of climate change on Pakistan's islands
Climate change is swelling the surrounding seas off the megacity of Karachi and baking the land with rising temperatures.
A Taliban spokesperson addresses a press conference in Kabul on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 2, 2024
Taliban told to 'include women' in public life at U.N. talks
Excluding civil rights groups from the talks was the price for the Taliban government's participation in them.
In a recently released report, a U.N. group has urged Japanese companies to draw up policies vowing to fulfill their responsibility in protecting human rights.
BUSINESS
Jun 29, 2024
U.N. voices concern over rights violations in Japan workplaces
While noting "important advancements" on the issue, a report expressed concerns about difficulties in addressing deeply embedded harmful gender and social norms.
A protest for equal voting rights for African Americans in Washington. Critics argue that identity politics distract from real issues of power, but racial solidarity has played a key role in the U.S. and beyond as a means of liberation.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2024
Two cheers for identity politics
Many people no longer identify themselves with their profession or class but seek meaning and purpose in the traits that make them different from others.
Japan’s Coco Yoshizawa participates in a Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier. This summer’s Olympics will be the first in which half of athletes are female.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2024
Paris Olympics’ gender equality boast has an asterisk
Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics where half of all athletes are female. But the gender gap remains wide among the ranks of coaches and needs to be tackled.
A building housing the Public Prosecutor's Office in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 28, 2024
Japan names Naomi Unemoto as first female prosecutor-general
With the appointment, which takes effect July 9, Unemoto, 61, will succeed current Prosecutor-General Yukio Kai, who will retire.
Lawyer and activist Rozkar Ibrahim walks past a headstone marked with the word 'grave of life' in an area reserved for the victims of femicide and honor killings, at the Siwan cemetery in Sulaimaniyah, the autonomous Kurdistan region's second city, on May 17.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2024
Murdered and forgotten: Iraqi victims of gender-based violence
Domestic violence and femicide have long plagued Iraq's conservative society.
Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya celebrates after winning gold in the women's Olympic marathon in Sapporo in August 2021.
OLYMPICS
Jun 26, 2024
At Paris Olympics, women athletes finally reach parity
When the event was revived by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, he saw it as a celebration of gentlemanly athleticism "with female applause as its reward."
The U.S. Supreme Court opened the way for states to ban or strictly limit abortion in 2022
WORLD / Politics
Jun 25, 2024
U.S. Republican push to limit abortion access falters two years after Dobbs
Pro-abortion groups are easily finding support for ballot initiatives, highlighting strong momentum to restore abortion rights.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greets her audience before discussing reproductive rights on the second anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned, in Phoenix on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 25, 2024
Harris and the Democrats aim at Trump on abortion ruling anniversary
Since the 2022 ruling, more than 20 Republican-led states in the U.S. have imposed abortion restrictions.
Japan's men's and women's gymnastics teams pose for photos during a news conference to announce the team's uniforms for the 2024 Games.
OLYMPICS / Gymnastics
Jun 24, 2024
Leotard vs. unitard debate in gymnastics still raging ahead of Paris Olympics
The German gymnastics team took a stand against sexualization in the sport in 2021, but heading into Paris, the leotard is still very much in vogue in Japan and abroad.
Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, greets supporters at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters during election night in New Delhi, India on June 4.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 24, 2024
Some of Modi’s agenda could disappear in India’s fractured Parliament
A new Parliament taking office in India may give some hint of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s domestic policies are now in doubt.
A feminist demonstration against the far-right party in Toulouse, France, on Sunday
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024
French feminists protest Marine Le Pen even as she pulls in women
Protesters have had to reckon with a difficult reality: The National Rally leader has made progress in casting her party as a defender of women’s rights.
An Afghan woman carries empty containers to fetch water in Balkh province, Afghanistan, in August 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024
U.N.-led Doha meeting with Taliban sparks outcry over women's rights
The U.N. has been seeking a unified, international approach to dealing with the Taliban, who have cracked down on women's rights since returning to power.
Anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court in Washington on June 14.
WORLD / Society
Jun 19, 2024
'Unthinkable' normalized two years after U.S. abortion ruling
From medics to single mothers to abused minors, Americans from all walks of life have been affected.
Renho (left) and incumbent Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike are both pushing for child care policies in their campaign pledges for the Tokyo gubernatorial election next month.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 18, 2024
Koike and Renho take aim at Tokyo's declining birth rate
In unveiling their campaign manifestos, both gubernatorial contenders have pledged to bolster child-rearing policies.
Natsuko Imamura’s new short story collection "Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks" explores the worlds of three alienated girls whose problems are anything but typical.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2024
‘Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks’: Uncanny tales of troubled young women
Natsuko Imamura's narrators are young women with dogged resolve, few scruples and a naivete that borders on delusion.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’