International Women’s Day: Australian women Christian leaders look to empower women and girls across the globe
PETA MCCARTNEY speaks to three Christian women leaders in Australia – Clare Steele, CEO of Compassion Australia, Melissa Lipsett, CEO of Bapist World Aid Australia and Sharon Hollis, president of the Uniting Church in Australia – about the challenges females are facing around the world…
Access to education: College dreams dashed as young Afghan women fight to keep poverty at bay
Reuters report on how poverty is preventing female university students from attending school despite being allowed to do so by the Taliban…
Pope decries genital mutilation, sex trafficking of women; praises Moroccan efforts to rescue boy trapped in well
Vatican City Reuters Pope Francis condemned female genital mutilation and trafficking of women for prostitution on Sunday, calling them humiliating affronts to women’s dignity and urging officials to do everything possible to end both. “This practice, which is unfortunately common in various parts of the world, humiliates the dignity of a woman and gravely attacks […]
Girls in school: In Uganda, Anglican Church and government disagree on policy allowing pregnant students to return to school
JOHN SEMAKULA reports on how the Anglican Church’s ban on allowing expectant girls to attend schools has put them at odds with government policy and sparked a heated debate in the country…
UNICEF to directly fund Afghan teachers, bypassing Taliban authorities
Kabul, AfghanistanReuters The United Nations children’s agency said it was planning to set up a system to directly fund Afghan teachers, after the international community placed a freeze on funding to the Taliban-led administration. “UNICEF is setting up a system that will allow direct payments to teachers without the funds being channelled through the de […]
Afghanistan: A girls’ school is the story of a village
SAMYA KULLAB, of Associated Press, reports from the village of Salar in Wardak province…
Afghan girls stuck at home, waiting for Taliban plan to re-open schools
Reuters As the weeks pass in Afghanistan, the new Taliban administration has yet to announce when it will re-open secondary schools for girls, leaving them stuck at home while their brothers return to class. Two weeks since boys in classes above the sixth grade were told to go back to school, the government says it […]
Some Afghan girls return to school, others face anxious wait
Reuters Some Afghan girls returned to primary schools with gender-segregated classes on Saturday, but older girls faced an anxious wait with no clarity over if and when they would be able to resume their studies at the secondary school level. Most schools in the capital Kabul have stayed shut since the Taliban captured the city […]
Christian family in Afghanistan appeals to Pope to help them flee persecution
Vatican City RNS Alì Ehsani, 32, knows what life can be like for Christians under the Taliban regime. Born in Kabul in 1989, he and his brother fled when he was eight after the murder of his parents by the Islamic extremists. “I know firsthand how difficult it is to be Christians in that country,” […]
Young brides’ deaths trigger dowry crackdown in southern India
Chennai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation India’s Kerala state has launched a crackdown on the payment of dowry after the deaths of four young married women highlighted domestic abuse linked to the custom, which remains common despite being banned 60 years ago. Traditionally gold jewellery that parents hand over when their daughters wed, nowadays dowries can include […]