“My father says not to go to school, that I should be at home. ‘You are marriageable,’ he tells me,” sighs Munija Khatun, 15, as she mashes onions with a pestle for their dinner of fish stew. “My father has two families and takes responsibility for the first family, but not my family. Father comes …
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Today is International Women’s Day—an important date on AJWS’s calendar! It doesn’t get a lot of fanfare here in the U.S. but it means a whole lot for women and girls around the world who are struggling against injustice. In the communities AJWS supports, International Women’s Day is a day to honor brave women who …
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Originally published by Salon. It’s no secret that when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously declared in 1995 that “women’s rights are human rights,” she cemented her status as a champion for women and girls around the world. And as secretary of state, Clinton made gender equality and women’s empowerment a pillar of American diplomacy. The question now is whether the departure of the …
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Six years after violence and conflict marked Kenyan elections in 2007, millions of Kenyans will travel to the polls to elect their new leaders in early March. This is a pivotal moment in Kenyan history following the peaceful ratification of Kenya’s new progressive constitution in 2010. Each moment in Kenyan history is unique, and we …
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Burma is still not free. Shocked? We didn’t think so. You probably knew this well before the release of Freedom House’s 2013 report that lined up Burma shoulder-to-shoulder with other “Not Free” countries such as North Korea, Iraq and Iran. The resurgence of fighting in Kachin state between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), …
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