By: Mary Carson Former first lady of Somalia Mrs. Edna Adan has warned international aid agencies about the need to speak directly to communities who practice Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or risk ‘winning battles but losing the war’ on the practice. Edna Adan says that despite a reduction in the numbers of young girls being cut in her homeland of Somaliland and in the wider Somali nation, things are ‘slipping back’. “Unless we get people sitting on the mat in the villages, taking time to speak to the grandparents and the parents and the religious leaders, we lose what ground we have made,” said the midwife and former foreign minister of Somaliland. “It’s not about the money; it’s about what we do with the money. And in some cases, sending people instead of money is better.” Adan, who underwent FGM as a child, is head of her own maternity hospital,…

By: Phillip Inman The gender pay gap is likely to persist for more than a generation in the UK after the government rejected proposals to encourage flexible working and help women back into the workforce, MPs have said. Without ministers putting their weight behind measures needed to end the “pay penalty” suffered by millions of women, the government will fail to meet its target of closing the gap within the next couple of decades, said the cross-party women and equalities committee. The group made 17 recommendations last March, but most of them were rejected in the government’s response in January. The MPs had called for measures including three months’ paid paternity leave and devising industrial strategies for low-paid jobs carried out by women in Industries such care, cleaning and retail. Theresa May highlighted the need to close the gender pay gap in her Conservative party conference speech last year and…

Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange has appointed a woman to the position of chairperson for the first time in the kingdom’s history, sparking hopes that the country is progressing—albeit slowly—towards gender equality. Sarah Al Suhaimi, who became the first female chief executive of a Saudi investment bank when she took the role at NBC Capital in 2014, accepted the offer to chair Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul, the largest bourse in the Middle East, replacing Khalid Al Rabiah, the organisation said in a statement last week. The announcement was followed by Monday’s appointment of Rania Mahmoud Nashar to the position of chief executive of Samba Financial Group, one of the country’s largest national banks. Ms Nashar has nearly two decades of experience in the financial sector and previously held several jobs at within Samba, according to Bloomberg. The appointment of women at top financial jobs is an important step for the Saudi Arabia,…