Women’s Rights – RightsViews

Beyond Saving Her: Toward a More Ethical Human Rights Aesthetic

May 30, 2025May 30, 2025 by EditorNo Comments

By Matilde Da Luz What do we see when we see suffering? In human rights campaigns, especially those addressing gender-based violence, the image of the suffering woman, often Muslim, veiled, and silent, has become almost inescapable. From post-9/11 “liberation” narratives about Afghanistan to humanitarian appeals that foreground school closures and barred windows, visual tropes have flattened incredibly multifaceted political scenarios into sentimental and victimizing stories. These images stir emotions. They drive donations. But at what cost? Feminist and decolonial thinkers have long argued that emotional appeals, despite their intuitive strength, obscure the structural and historical conditions of injustice surrounding victims of abuse. They do so by effectively depoliticizing harm, casting women as passive victims, and reinscribing colonial logics of moral superiority. Representation, in this view, is never neutral. And visibility, far from guaranteeing justice, may distort, contain, or even erase. The Sentimental Economy of Rights Human rights campaigns rely on what Professor Wendy Hesford calls “spectacular rhetorics”, which are visual and narrative forms that turn trauma...

Hijab Mandate and Women’s Agency: Navigating Autonomy in Afghanistan

August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 by Meryem Bahadir1 Comment

Article by Staff Writer Nazeela Elmi Image by Kiana Hayeri from The New York Times In September 2021, a few days after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, a group of women in black head to toe niqab covering went out in Kabul University and Kabul streets to demonstrate their support for the Taliban regime. Many rightfully assumed that, as all of the signs held by the protestors had the same blueprint and all of them wore the same article of clothing, the demonstrations were staged by the Taliban against women who held anti-Taliban views and who protested following the collapse of the former Afghan government. This kind of covering was unprecedented in Kabul or anywhere in Afghanistan. Women’s veiling varies across Afghanistan given their roles in society, agriculture, throughout their historical junctures, and in various geographical and cultural regions. Veiling has not been mandated under the law in the former government in Afghanistan, though the burqa was imposed during the first rule of...

Social Norms Constraining Legal Provisions: Coparcenary Rights of Indian Daughters

May 14, 2023 by Jess GallagherNo Comments

By Guest Writer Prasun Nabiyal The Hindu Succession Act (Amendment) of 2005 placed Hindu daughters on an equal footing with sons by giving them coparcenary rights over their father’s ancestral property. Coparcenary rights are a bundle of property rights shared among joint-heirs. According to N.R. Raghavchariar’s “Hindu Law Principles and Precedents”, this includes rights such as right to joint-possession and right to demand partition. Prior to the 2005 amendment, these rights were the exclusive domain of Hindu sons. The amendment thus marked a watershed moment, moving away from the gender-discriminating Hindu Succession Act of 1956. Last year, the Supreme Court of India, in the same tradition, held that Hindu daughters can inherit both self-acquired-property and coparcenary property. However, despite these progressive developments in the legal realm, the societal perception towards the issue of Hindu women possessing property rights persists. The mainstream view continues to believe that only sons, not daughters, have coparcenary rights. Thus, the exercise of these rights by daughters is...

The Direct Challenge to Roe v. Wade Coming before the Conservative Supreme Court

November 29, 2021November 22, 2021 by Noah SmithNo Comments

By: Susanne Prochazka, RightsViews staff writer. While the contentious Texas 6-week abortion ban, S.B.6, has caught the national spotlight, on December 1st, 2021 the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of a pre-viability abortion prohibition for the first time since 1973’s seminal ruling in Roe v. Wade. In this case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court will be hearing the state of Mississippi’s appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down a Mississippi law banning abortions following 15 weeks of pregnancy. Since 2010, over 300 laws limiting the right to abortion have been enacted by various state legislatures. Many of these laws remain on the books, even where legal challenges have delayed or halted implementation of the laws going into effect. Twelve states have passed restrictions regarding “admitting privileges” laws, laws that require any doctor who performs abortions to hold active admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, similar to laws overturned in Texas and Louisiana. In 2019 and...

The Question of Constitutionality, International Law and Women’s Protection after Turkey’s Withdraws from Istanbul Convention

October 20, 2021October 18, 2021 by Noah SmithNo Comments

By guest contributors Sarthak Gupta* The ‘Istanbul Convention’ officially referred to as the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence is the first legally enforceable international instrument in Europe addressingviolence against women. Turkey was the first country to sign the Convention in 2011. In 2012, on International Women Day, the Turkish Parliament overwhelmingly adopted the Convention, and the Law on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence Against Women (Law No. 6284) was enacted to integrate the Convention into domestic legislation. In March 2021, Turkey also became the first nation to withdraw from the Convention, ironically that too on International Women’s Day, following its 10th anniversary. This withdrawal came during the time Covid-19 pandemic when women were more vulnerable to domestic violence. Istanbul Security Directorate statistics stated that there has been a 38% increase incases of domestic violence since March 2020. As per the Turkish Federation of Women’s Association, the physical violence...

Recognition of “Marital Rape” As a Valid Ground for Divorce – An Affirmative Step towards Marital Equality and Women’s Rights in India

September 10, 2021September 8, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By guest contributor Yamika Khanna* The Madras High Court in a remarkable judgment (case name was redacted due to the sensitive nature) upheld that marital rape, although not penalized under the Indian Penal Code, is a valid ground to claim divorce. The judgment is a light at the end of a very dark tunnel in recognizing the heinous nature of marital rape as a gross violation of bodily autonomy, privacy, and dignity of a married woman, especially under a legal regime that considers non-consensual sexual intercourse with the “wife” by the “husband” as an exception to the crime of rape. An appeal was filed before the Hon'ble Court against the judgment of the Family Court. The Family Court vide its judgment allowed the petition for divorce sought by the wife on the ground of cruelty. The gravest contention of the wife with reference to cruelty against her pertained to the worst forms of sexual perversion including unnatural intercourse against the wife’s will. In...

The Fate of Afghan Women after the US Withdrawal: A Legal Analysis

September 3, 2021 by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments

By guest contributors Ashutosh Anand* and Kaustubh Kumar** INTRODUCTION The deal between the US and the Taliban signed in February 2020 stated that the US and its allies would withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan within 14 months. On August 31, 2021, all American forces have already withdrawn from Afghanistan, which has consequently unleashed havoc on the rights of Afghani women. When the US and its allies waged war on Afghanistan, the defense of women’s rights was one of their prime reasons to justify their invasion and subsequent occupation. The post-Taliban constitution, enacted in 2004, provided women with most of the basic human and civil rights. Moreover, under American troops’ presence, the post-Taliban regime followed a liberal policy towards women by providing access to healthcare, education, and work. For women’s empowerment in politics, the government also offered a 27 percent reservation of seats for women in Wolesi Jirga (House of People) of Afghanistan, which helped uproot the conservative mindset for women in Afghan...

Violation of International Laws and Women’s Rights: Afghanistan, the Taliban, and the Price of Peace

July 30, 2021July 30, 2021 by Anna MillerNo Comments

By guest contributor Shelal Lodhi Rajput, a student at Symbiosis Law School. Uncertain certainties: An eclipse on human rights A country torn apart by war, a country that has seen 40 years of war, a country often referred to as ‘graveyard of empires,’ a country with the shattered dream of peace and a country with a million dollar question i.e., ‘Will the war ever end’? The country is Afghanistan, where things are going from bad to worse with the withdrawal of United States Combat troops. Once again history is repeating itself as the return of the Taliban spell suggests an end to civil liberty, basic human rights, prominently rights of women, and once again the regime of Talibanned as it existed in Afghanistan from 1996-2001. Previously, the Taliban regime banned several innocuous activities including kite flying, makeup artists and musicians. The Taliban’s return to power is evident with every passing day, their insurgencies are increasing day by day and with the alarming rate...

Plight of Sex Workers During COVID-19: A South Asian Perspective

July 23, 2021July 23, 2021 by Anna MillerNo Comments

By Atika Chaturvedi, a third year law student at National University of Study and Research in Law at Ranchi, India. As the world came to a standstill, the shock of the lockdown rippled through the various strata of society. The proliferation of COVID-19 in 2020 left the daily wage earners around the world scraping for money and struggling for survival. One such group was sex workers. Albeit, various South Asian governments formulated covid-relief packages, most of them left out sex workers out of the ambit of such packages. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and Article 3, that guarantees everyone the right to life, liberty and security of person, were denied to the sex workers as they were not only curtailed from earning their livelihood, but were also rendered ineligible for the relief packages. They were stripped off of the chance of continuing...

Amnesty Philippines: Promoting Corporate Accountability and Indigenous Women’s Rights through Human Rights Education

July 21, 2021 by Anna MillerNo Comments

By Noah Smith, RightsViews staff writer. Promoting Corporate Accountability and Indigenous Women’s Rights was a five-year project implemented by Amnesty International (Amnesty) Philippines under the larger global Education, Empowerment, Justice (EEJ) Program, which ran from 2013 to December 2017. The EEJ program was coordinated by Amnesty Norway with the goal of reinforcing basic human rights of people across the world and contributing to greater justice for thousands of human beings through human rights education and empowerment initiatives. Since its inception in 2013, the project distinguished itself in such a way by coalescing women’s empowerment within a framework of corporate accountability; courageous in its attempts to change the balance of power in three exceedingly patriarchal indigenous communities; and undaunted in targeting governance structures to perform their state obligations to protect, respect, and fulfill indigenous communities’ rights. The project was implemented in the Caraga Region which is an administrative region in the Philippines occupying the northeastern section of the island of Mindanao. It is...