This week, Yemen appointed its first ever female judge to the Supreme Court, Denmark saw protests over a hijab ban and in Nigeria, a young woman was brutally murdered.

Pakistan

More women in Pakistan are choosing to leave their marriages, despite divorce remaining a complicated social taboo in the country’s conservative culture. Women’s rights activists attribute this trend to women becoming more empowered and less willing to settle for abusive marriages.

In Pakistan, divorce is not monitored by any dedicated agency and rules are dictated by Sharia or Islamic law. A woman cannot “file for divorce” but instead has the right to dissolve a marriage under Sharia without the consent of her husband. This is called a “khula” and is arbitrated by a family court.

Atika Hassan Raza, an attorney at the Human Rights Protection Center, a Lahore-based human rights non-profit, says that more women are seeking a khula. The husband must initiate cases of formal divorce in Pakistan.

Read more here.

Yemen

For the first time in Yemeni history, a woman has been appointed as a judge to the Supreme Judicial Council. Sabah Al Alwani was appointed and has demanded more action to narrow the country’s gender gap.

Only a third of women in Yemen are literate, making up less than 2 per cent of the political process and a mere 6 per cent of the labour force, the lowest in the world, according to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Index.

In 2014, the Houthis took over Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and the country remains in a state of war. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and millions have been displaced – the situation in Yemen is often called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Amidst the crisis in Yemen, Ms Al Alwani is hopeful for the future of Yemeni women with her new appointment

Read more here.

India

Women in India are increasingly standing up against the abortion of girls.

Weak and traumatised after two miscarriages and weeks of painful bleeding, Ritu decided to stop trying for a son in defiance of her traditional Indian family, who wanted a male heir. Instead, the 32-year-old, married at 19 to a man chosen by her parents, decided to educate their four daughters to become “as capable as a son.”

They will finish school, go to college and then become pilots or engineers. But they have to get out of here. Otherwise, they will do nothing … like me. -Ritu

The preference for sons in India – seen as breadwinners who will carry on the family name and perform the last rites for their parents – has led to the illegal abortion of millions of female foetuses, particularly in conservative northern states like Haryana.

Nigeria

On Friday, 23-year-old Ummukulsum Buhari was brutally murdered by a Chinese national identified as Geng Quanrong.

Ms Buhari was reportedly hacked to death in her family house at Janbulo Quarters in Kumbotso Local Government Area of Kano State on Friday night.

“She was my daughter; he (the Chinese man) always comes around wanting to see her, and she has been refusing. This time around, when he came, he kept knocking on the door,”

Ms Buhari’s mother told Daily Trust. “When I was fed up of him hitting the door loudly, I opened the door, and he pushed me aside and got in and started stabbing her with a knife.”

Read more here.

Denmark

The Danish Commission for the Forgotten Women’s Struggle – a body set up by Denmark’s ruling Social Democratic Party – has recommended that the country’s government ban hijabs (Muslim headscarves) for students in Danish elementary schools.

The August 24 proposal is one of nine recommendations to prevent “honour-related social control” of girls from minority backgrounds.

This recommendation to ban Muslim headscarves has been met with backlash.

Read more here.