violence against women

Clarice Gargard, a Dutch columnist for a large newspaper in the Netherlands, has described receiving online threats and attacks in comments related to her work. The remarks, she says, are mostly related to her “giving a different perspective on society.” 
When Reporters Without Borders recently tallied the murders of journalists across the globe in 2019, the organization found that the confirmed death toll, 49, was the lowest since 2003. That was the good news.

The Women’s Day march in Istanbul, 2017. The leaders of Brazil, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all friends of Trump, have been steadily eroding the rights of women. In Turkey, for example, a bill has been introduced to grant amnesty to men convicted of statutory rape if they marry their victims. OZGE SEBZECI/CREATIVE COMMONS

The annual Commission on the Status of Women, 2019. This year’s meeting, March 9-20, could be as contentious on such sensitive topics as reproductive health rights as they were last year. This time, however, the session reviews the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the global blueprint for empowering women. Serious gaps remain on gender equality. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN

The International Court of Justice held hearings in December 2019 in a new case filed by The Gambia accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya people. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, defended her country in the hearings. Now, the court is expected to issue a ruling on emergency measures in the case on Jan. 23, 2020. 

A detail from a mural being painted on a memorial for victims of Guatemala’s civil war, San Juan Comalapa, 2018. As UN-led global commemorations push ahead on women’s rights and equality in 2020, a set of six “action coalition” themes was announced by UN Women. Not everyone is happy with the topics. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN

In 2017, a contingent of UN peacekeepers in Haiti holding a closing ceremony to their operations and the start of peacekeepers’ overall withdrawal from the country that year. New research focusing on how sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers in Haiti has affected women and girls there has revealed a nuanced situation linked to extreme, pervasive poverty. LOGAN ABASSI/UN PHOTO

This year, the status of women on many fronts, from political involvement to personal justice, will be evaluated in international forums. It is widely recognized, for starters, that women in poor countries need more access to information on basic health care for themselves and their families. Here, polio vaccination in Afghanistan. CREATIVE COMMONS

President Trump speaking at the UN’s luncheon for heads of state, September 2019. He and other certain global leaders attending the General Assembly opening session signaled the rise of nationalism coupled with pushback on women’s rights. LIZ MUZI/UNCA POOL

The Netherlands hosted a conference with governments and the financial sector on human trafficking and slavery, June 2019. Sexual extortion, or “sextortion,” the author says, is a crime against humanity that is not only part of human trafficking transactions but is also found in other arenas of life, from academia to the workplace.

President Trump with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, at the 74th session of the General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019. Melania Trump is in the center. The US is blocking progress on women’s reproductive rights globally. ARIANA LINDQUIST/UN PHOTO
It did not take long after the 74th General Assembly session opened this fall for the Trump team to signal that its strategy in key United Nations meetings would be to act as uncooperative and obstructive as possible, especially on human-rights agendas.