Jyoti Gadari got married when she was just 17. Like many young women, she wanted to explore: go to college, try out different jobs, see what kind of opportunities might unfold. And according to local custom, she didn’t have to live with her husband yet. She thought she had time. But her husband’s family had …
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Sexual violence survivors and their friends and family have been making headlines across India since December, when about 5,000 of them began a 6,000-mile journey across 24 states. The “Dignity March,” which concludes this Friday in Delhi, aims to raise public awareness of the sexual violence that affects an untold number of women and children …
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Kausar Ansari has come a long way since her first job. Today, she is a leader at Awaaz-e-Niswaan, an AJWS grantee that supports Muslim women and girls in Mumbai to stay in school and pursue careers. But at age 14, she worked in a garment factory, where she earned only 700 rupees a month—about $10 …
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Years ago, while giving a talk at a Jewish high school in New York City, I showed students a video of a Sesame Street skit from 1975 that demonstrated the relationship between “Near” and “Far.” As the #MeToo movement continues to build momentum in the United States and around the world, I am grappling with how we …
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Many years ago, when I was in government, Mario Cuomo, then New York’s Governor announced the “Year of the Woman”; we joked that what we needed was not one year but as many years as it would take to realize full gender equality. It did not happen then, and it has not happened yet, despite …
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Raising a voice for women amid the horrors of war
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