Femina
Femina
Do women lead, connect and share differently? Subscribe for the latest stories.

Culture>Sick
Africa | Nigeria | Corruption

Nigeria police rescue 19 young women, girls from ‘baby factory’

Source:
Nigerian authorities said Monday that 19 girls and young women who were abducted and impregnated by captors who planned to sell their babies have been rescued. Lagos police spokesman Bala Elkana said the victims and four babies were rescued from four locations in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. The victims, aged between 15 and 28, are mainly from eastern Nigeria. They told police they were tricked into coming to Lagos with the promise of jobs. Nigeria has a high number of syndicates that keep young women to produce babies for sale – a scheme locally termed "baby factories." The p
Asia | Taiwan | Crimes

Cops raid ‘killer exorcism cult’ hideout led by ‘female Buddha’ in mountains

Source:
Cops have raided dangerous "exorcism" cult led by a "female Buddha" in a secret mountain hideout in Taiwan. Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said 19 followers were rescued from the cult’s headquarters based in a monastery, in the island’s central landlocked county of Nantou in August. Reports say followers of "Zhonghua Rixing Yishang" – or "China Daily Virtue", were prohibited from leaving or speaking without permission and one was reportedly killed in a sick ritual. The death of Taiwanese national Ms Fang, 20, in mainland China sparked police investigations acro
Middle East | Saudi Arabia | Culture

The Saudi government is hunting down women who flee the country by tracking the IMEI number on their cellphones

Source:
Women who flee Saudi Arabia expect to be chased. They expect their friends to be interviewed, their social media to be scoured, their passports to be frozen. They mostly do not expect Saudi government agents to hunt down the old box for their iPhone. But according to multiple sources who spoke with INSIDER, this is what has been happening in Saudi Arabia's quest to track down the growing number of women who flee the country every year. Cellphone packaging can provide information that could — with the help of spy-grade tracking equipment — trace a Saudi runaway to within a few feet of her
South Asia | India | Culture

How come there are no girls? Pregnant women in India want to know

Source:
The issue of sex-selective abortion is a huge and complex problem in parts of India. It’s led to gender imbalances in some Indian states that have reached “emergency proportions,” according to the United Nations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to use both public relations and law enforcement to combat the practice, which seems only to be growing, especially in the country’s deeply patriarchal northwestern regions. Under Indian law, it’s strictly illegal for a doctor to reveal the sex of a fetus “by any words, by any sign, by any way, by any means — by emailing or an
Africa | South Sudan | Crimes

South Sudanese girls given away as ‘blood money’

Source:
Due to extreme gender inequalities in South Sudan, a large majority of girls in the country are subjected to at least one form of domestic violence in their young lives. They are also three times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than to finish primary education, according to the international children’s development organization Plan International. But young girls in the country’s Eastern Equatoria State suffer a particularly abhorrent practice which is traditional among at least five of the state’s 12 tribes – “blood money” compensation.
Africa | Sudan | Crimes

A HEMLINE IS NOT A CRIME: 10 Women at risk of flogging for “indecent” clothing

Source:
Sudan's Public Order Police have charged 10 female Christian students with 'indecent dress, and subjected them to humiliation during their detention. On June 25, Sudan's Public Order Police stopped 12 female Christian students in front of the Evangelical Baptist Church where they had attended a ceremony. They were wearing trousers and skirts. The students were charged with "indecent dress" under Article 152 of Sudan's 1991 Criminal Act. Two were released. The students were subjected to degrading treatment and humiliating verbal abuse during their detention. They were released on bail on
South Asia | India | Culture

Female foeticide, India’s ‘ticking bomb’

Source:
The jubilant young man's arrival brought an abrupt halt to the card game contested by the turbaned group sitting under the tree. He thought he had good news for them: "I've been blessed with a baby girl!" he announced proudly.  The response was not what he expected - the group's shock quickly turned to ridicule. "Why didn't you get her killed in the womb?" came the collective cry. "Did you not get a gender determination test done on the foetus?" Such a test is illegal in India, but this reaction - discovered during an undercover investigation by Al Jazeera in the village o
North America | United States | Crimes

Honor Killings in America

Source:
Violence against women is not just a problem in countries like Afghanistan and Somalia. It's happening in the U.S. too. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, gets it. “I don’t see,” he told me this week, “how anyone who believes in the rule of law and the rights of women could do anything other than support efforts to end female-genital mutilation, forced marriage and honor-killings—practices that have no place in the 21st century.” These things do happen. Two teenage sisters are shot, point blank, in the back of their father’s taxi, apparently for the shame they brou
South Asia | India | Corruption

Marital rape? Marriage sacred in India, says government

Source:
In a statement that could entangle the government in a major controversy and sully its image of a liberal, equitable democracy at the world forum, the government on Wednesday said the concept of marital rape cannot be applied in the Indian context as marriage is considered sacred here. "It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors, including level of education, illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a
Middle East | Israel | Culture

First race in Arab-Israeli city: Female runners get threats

Source:
Arab and Jewish runners, especially women, were excited for the first ever race in the Arab city of Tira. The organizers worked to encourage young female athletes to get involved in more physical activities in the community. Eighty women were scheduled to run this weekend. However, religious leaders said that they objected to women running while wearing shorts and tights. They suggested that the women run inside a local soccer stadium instead of outside on the streets. Activists and residents claimed that female runners were wearing immodest outfits. Despite the fact that all proper perm
Middle East | Saudi Arabia | Culture

Saudi wife is divorced, lashed over WhatsApp post

Source:
A man from Saudi Arabia divorced his wife because of her WhatsApp status: “I pray to be patient enough to put up with you,” followed by initials matching the husband’s name. The 32-year-old woman admitted that she posted the offensive status after she and her husband argued via the mobile messaging service. She was sentenced to 70 lashes as punishment.

Read the world's local women's news


How does Femina work?

  • Step 1
    1
    Local Country Editors From Around the World
  • Step 2
    2
    Choose News Articles From Their Countries’ Local Language Papers
  • Step 3
    3
    Summarize & Contextualize The Stories In English

Got it!

Thanks for registering!

Swipe for more Top Stories


Got it!