By: Anneliese Mahoney Melinda Gates is dedicating herself to ensuring that women, globally, have access to contraception and reproductive health care. In a recent op-ed penned for National Geographic, the famed philanthropist pledged that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would help 120 million more women gain access to birth control by 2020. Gates described her motivations for taking on this task, saying: “In the decade and a half since Bill and I started our foundation, I’ve heard from women all over the world about how important contraceptives are to their ability to take charge of their futures. When women are able to plan their pregnancies around their goals for themselves and their families, they are also better able to finish their education, earn an income, and fully participate in their communities”. While this initiative has been underway for a few years, Gates’ letter shows a renewed commitment to the…

Princess Reema bint Bandar The conservative Islamic country has maintained a ban on women participating in competitive sports but has now relaxed rules on them going to the gym for health reasons, local paper Okaz has reported. Princess Reema bint Bandar said that the Islamic Kingdom planned for every district and neighbourhood to have a gym. Although swimming, running and bodybuilding will be allowed, a blanket ban will remain for competitive sports like tennis, football, volleyball and basketball. Princess Reema told the paper ‘It is not my role to convince the society, but my role is limited to opening the doors for our girls to live a healthy lifestyle away from diseases that result from obesity and lack of movement.’ Women-only gym NuYu has already opened in the more liberal city Jeddah, capital Riyadh, Dammam and al-Khobar. The General Authority of Sports has said the high-cost of running female gyms…

By: Anna MacSwan Getting men to be active fathers may not seem the most obvious way to tackle gender-based violence. But, according to Gary Barker, CEO and founder of Promundo, who engages men and boys in ending violence against women and girls, policies that encourage men to do more unpaid care work are a vital part of achieving gender equality. “To us, it seemed obvious that we needed to figure out more constructive ways to engage men on this topic,” he says. In fact, there can be consequences when men aren’t brought into initiatives to empower women. According to Barker, while in the long-term, women who are better off financially are less likely to be involved in a violent relationship and more likely to leave a violent partner, in the short-term, the opposite can be true. Micro-credit programmes that target women, for example, can initially lead to an increase in…

By: Tod Perry Women in Saudi Arabia are standing up in opposition to the kingdom’s $3.5 billion investment in Uber. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving and the investment is seen as a way for the country and Uber to profit from oppression. To travel freely, women in the conservative Islamic country are forced to either be driven by a male family member or pay for services such as Uber. “They’re investing in our pain, in our suffering,” Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi women’s historian who teaches at Qatar University, said. “This institutionalizes women’s inferiority and dependency, and it turns women into an object of investment.” Women in Saudi Arabia who are caught behind the wheel are subject fines and, in some cases, flogging. To protest Uber’s partnership with the kingdom, Saudi women have posted pictures of themselves deleting the Uber app…

By: Malva Izquierdo Three decades after Nicaragua launched the first of many reforms aimed at giving women equal land rights, experts say rural women remain exploited and open to disinheritance, violence and abuse. Many women are locked out of land – first by a father then by a husband – while others say they are treated worse than the animals they tend. Yet all this was supposed to end decades ago. The first promised wave of reform to property law began in the 1980s, a new drive followed in the 1990s and the latest big attempt to give women fair treatment came just six years ago. All have failed, according to the experts, creating fresh opportunities for men to use ‘asset violence’ and blackmail to control both wife and land. Rene Rodriguez, author of a study by the Managua-based research institute, Nitlapan, says a major problem lies with inheritance…

African First Ladies have been called to intensify efforts in advocating changes in attitude and cultural norms as well as removal of legal and political barriers that stand in the way of the continent’s transformation, Ethiopia’s First Lady said. Speaking recently at the 18th Ordinary General Assembly of the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFL), First Lady Roman Tesfaye said African First ladies are increasingly using their role and influence to bring about changes nationally and internationally. She said “we, First Ladies of Africa take pride in our individuals and collective contributions to the encouraging socio-economic and political strides Africa is making.” African First ladies should not be considered as treating symptoms of social and economic problems or only reaching out of humanitarian causes, the First Lady added. “Our advocacy should continue to be geared towards addressing the root causes of the problems our society is facing,” she…