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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree in the early hours of March 20 withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europe treaty — dubbed the Istanbul Convention — on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. The convention sets comprehensive standards...
"We all know what the British press can be like and it was destroying my mental health," Prince Harry said in a recent interview for "The Late Late Show With James Corden." Was he kidding? Destroying his mental health? How exactly? By expressing opinions on his behavior? Or deciding whether he has...
On October 22, 2020, the United States co-sponsored a Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. However, despite its name, this declaration states that “in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.” While it doesn’t...
Americans like to rate their presidents. In fact, presidential rankings have become something of a cottage industry in political science, ever since the eminent Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. started the tradition in the late 1940s. In Germany, we don’t do that, at least not in a...
Last year, a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that of the 87,000 women who were intentionally killed in 2017 around the world, more than half — 50,000 — were murdered by intimate partners or family members, mostly in their homes. According to official...
Nearly a year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, its effects on people’s lives, countries’ economies and health care around the world are becoming clearer. In some Central and Eastern European countries, however, this pandemic has had repercussions in another crucial area: democracy....
The remains of Pinar Gültekin were found in the woodlands in Turkey’s Mugla province on July 21. The 27-year-old economics student was strangled to death in a fit of rage by her ex-boyfriend, who then burned her body. One of many tragic and preventable deaths, Gültekin’s murder sparked...
Mao Zedong once stated that “Women hold up half the sky.” This has been particularly true over the past months with COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the globe. In fact, it is legitimate to claim that during the pandemic, women have held up significantly more than their share of the sky. Anyone...
The virtual G20 Leaders’ Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia this past weekend was intended to be a moment of triumph for Riyadh and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It was the first time an Arab state has hosted the gathering, which represented a golden opportunity to flaunt on the global stage the...
For an entire year before my novel’s publication date, I braced myself. I’ve never felt this way about a new novel’s birth. But “Seven” — about Sharifa, a 40-year-old woman who returns to India on a marriage-saving trip to research a revered ancestor — was different. Folded into...
Despite incidents of gender-based violence spiraling in Mexico since the introduction of COVID-19 lockdown measures in April 2020, the Mexican government slashed funding to women’s services in August as part of an emergency decree that redirected money to programs it deemed a...
