India’s High Court upholds right of women to enter religious places
In a recent ruling, the Bombay High Court upheld the right of women to enter the Shani Shinganapur temple in the Indian state of Maharashtra. This decision has been hailed...
Telling the Whole Truth: Post-Assault Contact in Sexual Violence Cases
For the last 16 months, Canadians have been engaged in extraordinary conversations connected to the sexual assault allegations leveled against one of Canada’s most charming and charismatic talk show hosts,...
Gender Pay Gap Reporting: Will Transparency Lead to Change?
When David Cameron announced that his government would require large private sector employers to report on gender pay differences in their workplace, he said it would “cast sunlight on the...
Justice Scalia’s Legacy on Gender Equality: No Need to “Remember the Ladies”
Despite Justice Scalia’s well-known friendship with the most feminist Justice on the United States Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Scalia was no friend to feminist legal efforts. Indeed, he was...
Justice Scalia’s Repudiation of Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights
Throughout the three decades that Justice Antonin Scalia served on the United States Supreme Court, he was invariably viewed as one of the Court’s staunchest opponents of sex equality and...
UNHRC Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice country mission to the United States
In December 2015, the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice (WGDAW) issued its end-of-mission statement regarding the status of women’s equality...
An important step forward for victims of sexual violence in Colombia
On paper, it looked like a victory for women’s rights. The government of Colombia enacted historic legislation to address the country’s epidemic of sexual violence – one heightened by decades...
Let’s Talk about Sex Education and Human Rights
Despite a proposal by four prominent House of Commons Committees and various professional organisations, the Minister of Education announced on February 11, 2016 that age-appropriate sex and relationship education, including...
State-sponsored virginity: South Africa’s Maidens’ Bursary Scheme
It’s clearly not yet 2016 in the UThukela District in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, where the municipality recently decided (for a second year) to institute the “Maidens’ Bursary Awards”. These...
Bombay High Court makes Right to Clean Toilets a Fundamental Right for Women in India
Some women in India have to risk their life and sexual integrity when they decide to go to the toilet. Others who do have access to public toilets face the...
Trafficking of human beings at the ECtHR: Broadening the protection of women and girls through Article 14
Two Spanish cases currently pending before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) illustrate the gaping lacuna in the protections extended to trafficked women on the continent. They also, however,...
EU Gender Action Plan 2016-2020: Transforming the Lives of Girls and Women through EU External Relations
In October 2015, the Council of Ministers of Development adopted the Gender Action Plan (GAP) 2016-2020 of the European Union (EU). The GAP is based on a Staff Working Document...