The recent case of a teenage German girl travelling to Syria to allegedly actively join the “jihad” has German experts worried about the threat that men, and increasingly (often very young) women, involved in such activities can present to German society. France has indicted two people for aiding another teenage girl who has allegedly travelled to Syria too to fight alongside rebels.
Recently two prostitution networks exploiting Syrian minor girls in Lebanon have been caught by authorities; the “low price” of Syrian girls makes them vulnerable, and serious competition for other prostitutes in the country.
According to a BBC report an Afghan madrassa in the province of Kunduz is responsible for radicalising thousands of Afghan women and girls.
A sexual harassment case in an Egyptian university has sparked outrage in the country, after the dean said that the clothes of the victim triggered the incident.
Azemina is an 11-year-old Bosnian girl, who lives in a one-room cultural centre, without kitchen or washroom, in a village where she is the only child. Her parents have been displaced since the war and their current refuge is very isolated, which makes it hard for Azemina to attend school and live a normal life.
A group of suspected Uyghurs, including women and at least a hundred children, have been rescued from a trafficking camp in Thailand last week. The group initially said that they are Turkish, but they have no documents to prove that and it is very unlikely for Turkish refugees to end up in Thailand. Image by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
Iran says it has given a woman a “leave” from prison for good behaviour, after she was initially sentenced to stoning (which was later changed to a ten-year prison sentence) for adultery. It is unclear however what this “leave” really entails, but the Iranian government states it is an example of “our religion’s leniency towards women.” However, overall executions in Iran have been on the rise.
Two female victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots in India speak about why they will not vote in the upcoming Indian elections.
A new campaign by the Senegalese government promotes spaced births with at least 2 years between pregnancies, but birth control is controversial in the country.
The Economist features an article on the question why so many Kurdish women set themselves on fire.
“Overqualified” potential Muslim brides in Hyderabad, India are having a hard time finding equally educated spouses, as many men and their families still don’t value education as much as appearance or status.
Iraq launched an ambitious literacy program to reduce illiteracy in the country, but many literacy centres have not received any (financial) support and the teachers have not been paid wages for months, according to a headmistress of a literacy centre in Baghdad.
After a 13-year-old girl died when she was being cut in Egypt, her father and the doctor responsible are the first people to be prosecuted in Egypt for female genital mutilation (FGM).
The planned US TV show Alice in Arabia is facing a backlash on social media for being based on prejudiced themes; the story focuses on an American girl, Alice, kidnapped by her extended Saudi Arabian family.
Iraq was once a pioneer in women’s rights in the region, but many recent attempts to revive the women’s movement have failed to thrive.
A 17-year-old Pakistani rape victim set herself on fire and died from her injuries last Friday, after the key suspect, a doctor, was released from prison.
Police in Birmingham, UK are investigating whether the case of four teaching assistants (three of whom are Muslim women) who are suing a school for unfair dismissal is connected to an alleged plot by fundamentalist Muslims to “take over” schools in the region.
University guards in Khartoum, Sudan have stormed a female dormitory and threatened the girls to leave, after the University of Khartoum and its dormitories were closed indefinitely on Tuesday after students protests. There are around a thousand girls living in the dormitories, many of whom do not have any family in country’s capital nor the means to travel back home.
An Islamic teacher in the UK, who sexually abused an 11-year-old female student he tutored over an extended period of time, has received a 40-week suspended prison sentence, because his family “depends on him.”
Uzbek mother Zilola has given birth to ten children, and will possibly have more as she doesn’t believe in birth control, but large families do not receive much support from the Uzbek authorities and the Tulyaganov family lives in dire poverty.
The BBC features an article on two Iraqi refugees, a mother and daughter, who sought refuge in Syria five years ago and are looking for a way out.
The Saudi Ministry of Justice has uncovered at least ten cases in which female impostors were used to represent other women in courts in 2013 alone, mainly in cases related to family matters such as inheritance, divorce and alimony.
An Islamic scholar in Indonesia has been fired for videotaping a threesome with two teachers, after the tape surfaced online last week. The two women, who are employed at an Islamic boarding school, may be fired too.
A displaced hearing impaired woman has been raped in her home in a camp for internally displaced people in Darfur; last Friday two Darfuri women were raped outside a refugee camp while collecting firewood in eastern Chad.
Poor Muslim families in Nepal arrange unmatched marriages between their often very young daughters and older, often widowed and divorced men, to avoid paying a dowry as required by most more compatible potential grooms.
Rebekah Dawson, the British Muslim woman known for refusing to remove her face veil in court, has been sentenced in another case to six months in jail for the intimidation of a potential witness in a case against her husband.