The ongoing series highlights women’s news and information about foreign policy. This week’s post covers February 11 to February 17.

The United States of America

American Medical Association attorneys said restricting access to mifepristone, the abortion pill, “would impose a severe, almost unimaginable cost on pregnant people throughout the United States.”

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed a lawsuit last year asking a federal judge in Texas to ban mifepristone nationwide on the grounds that it poses serious health risks.

Read more here.

Japan

Japan’s police arrested 17 people in connection to a case where over ten thousand women were secretly filmed while bathing in hot springs across the country over three decades.

Read more here.

Sudan

This week, nearly four hundred female leaders from fifteen African countries gathered in Juba, South Sudan, for the first ever International Conference on Women’s Transformational Leadership. The conference—supported by the United Nations—was focused on addressing challenges impacting women and girls in South Sudan and across Africa.

Read more here.

Tunisia

Tunisia’s parliamentary election results reveal that women in the country are losing political power. According to preliminary results, only 16 percent of the new legislature will be female, down from 26 and 31 percent in 2014 and 2018, respectively. Human rights groups predicted this decline, pointing to election laws introduced by Tunisian President Kais Saied last fall.

Read more here.

Afghanistan

The Taliban has stopped the sale of contraceptives in two of Afghanistan’s main cities, claiming their use by women is a western conspiracy to control the Muslim population

“Items such as birth control pills and Depo-Provera injections are not allowed to be kept in the pharmacy since the start of this month, and we are too afraid to sell the existing stock,” a shop owner in Kabul told the Guardian.

Read more here.