Featured Stories
From where I stand: “Just the act of wearing our traditional clothes is an expression of resistance”
Sonia Maribel Sontay Herrera is an indigenous woman and human rights defender from Guatemala. Her vision is for Guatemala to respect the rights of indigenous women and hear their voices.
At 16, Jakomba Jabbie is one of the most vocal advocates for the education of all girls in the Gambia, especially when it comes to science and technology skills.
Po Chun Liu, 40, is the first woman international baseball umpire from Chinese Taipei. She was awarded this year’s World Trophy at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Women and Sport Awards, co-hosted by UN Women and the IOC, for her advocacy for female empowerment through sport.
Globally, 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked, and 56% of them are women, according to latest data from The World Bank. The trend continues in Africa, where up to 95 million unbanked adults receive cash payments for agricultural products, and 65 million save using semiformal methods.
For Ina Grădinaru, a psychologist with a women’s center in Moldova, her work with survivors of violence is much more than a job, it’s a social responsibility and her life mission. For the #HearMeToo campaign, she talks about her work, the persisting challenges and myths that must be broken to end the violence.
Amira Kushta* was diagnosed with a rare tumor in the spine and was paralyzed after back surgery when she was 19. Her house became her prison for 24 years.
Aissa Doumara Ngatansou is a 46-year-old mother of three children from the Far North Region of Cameroon. She co-founded a branch of the Association for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (ALVF) in the city of Maroua in 1996. ALVF works with survivors, and advocates with decision-makers to end early and forced marriages, and other forms of gender-based violence.
In Thailand, women are no longer willing to stay silent and live with a culture of rape. Launched in 2015 by a young activist, the ThaiConsent campaign is opening spaces for men and women discuss consent.
The Violence Against Children report in Kenya (2010) indicated that one in three Kenyan girls has experienced sexual violence before they turn 18. Wangu Kanja, a survivor of sexual violence, started a Foundation to provide much-needed support to survivors of gender-based violence in Kenya.
Thai supermodel Cindy Sirinya Bishop is the founder of a campaign to stop victim-blaming, which has galvanized women all over the country. She is now taking the campaign to different platforms, public events, and universities in Thailand and abroad.