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AJWS Blog

The AJWS community has a lot to say about what's happening in the world. Read our insights about the struggle for justice and human rights around the globe — and meet the activists on the frontlines of the fight to build a better world.

June 3, 2020 by AJWS Staff

Joint Statement and Recommendations By the Child, Early & Forced Marriage & Unions and Sexuality Working Group, and Partners

The global pandemic COVID-19 lays bare and exacerbates existing inequalities. For adolescent girls and young women in many places, this means that the harmful impacts of patriarchy and gender inequality are magnified and intensified. The coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns heighten the perpetration of gender-based violence; elevate risks of child, early and forced marriage and …

June 1, 2020 by Robert Bank

A Time to Mourn. A Time to Act.

By now, all of us are haunted by the image of a Black man, George Floyd, being asphyxiated by a white Minneapolis police officer — recorded for all to view. I cannot get this brutal picture out of my mind, and, like you, I am heartbroken and outraged. George Floyd’s murder is the latest in …

May 22, 2020 by Cantor Vera Broekhuysen

Lovingkindness in Endurance: Counting the Omer during COVID-19

Omer: A long stretch of spring, days both full and interminable. Each night I flip a page of my Omer counter, recite the blessing and add a new day to the count. In my head, I add the extra time from the night we closed our synagogue’s physical doors, as COVID-19 began its deadly spread. …

May 21, 2020 by Yasmin Ullah

Burma Faces a Deadline for Reporting on Genocide Against the Rohingya People—and the World Needs Transparency

Myanmar has a deadline: This Saturday, the government needs to report to the highest court of the United Nations on how it is preventing further acts of genocide against the Rohingya. Tragically, it will be kept secret from those most affected by what it has to say. I am Rohingya, part of the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority that …

May 21, 2020 by AJWS Staff

AJWS in Action: Updates from Our Partners, May 21

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, AJWS grantee-partners have shifted their work dramatically to meet the most desperate needs of their communities: food, protective equipment, life-saving information and more. Below, read how grantees in India and Mexico have adapted and evolved as COVID-19 tears through their communities. AJWS will continue to stand by all of …