News, comment and features on sexual violence in the developing world
August 2024
UN calls for foreign security forces to be deployed faster to quash Haiti gang wars
Armed gangs control much of Caribbean country’s capital with reports of 40 rape victims a day in areas, UN reports
July 2024
Rights and freedom
‘We are killed for what we are’: trans women in Colombia targeted by armed groups
Paramilitaries killed more than 40 transgender women last year, and threaten a further wave of ‘social cleansing’ in Caquetá
Girls as young as nine gang-raped by paramilitaries in Sudan – report
Human Rights Watch accuses RSF militia of ‘countless’ cases of rape and torture in Khartoum in 15-month civil war
‘They turn our farms into rape centres’: Russian mercenaries accused of abuse in Central African Republic
Torture, starvation, rape: Moi’s Kenya and the dark legacy of Nyayo House
Rights and freedom
Video appears to show gang-rape of Afghan woman in a Taliban jail
June 2024
India’s supreme court to rule on new penal code permitting marital rape
Rights groups protesting at Modi government’s view that criminalising sexual assault violates ‘sanctity’ of marriage
Yazidi survivors of Sinjar massacre alarmed by Iraq’s move to close camps
A decade after tens of thousands of Yazidis escaped an Islamic State attack many fear return to a home in ruins
Peruvian soldiers found guilty of rapes committed during civil war in historic verdict
‘Landmark’ case is first to deal with use of sexual violence in state’s conflict with Shining Path rebels four decades ago
May 2024
Opinion
Children of Vietnam war’s rape survivors unjustly bear the burden of others’ crimes
Tran Thi Ngai
From being branded Lai Dai Han, aderogatory term, to a lack of access to education and services, these children face a life of stigma. Our country must acknowledge their need for justice
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl review – Rungano Nyoni’s strange, intense tale of sexual abuse
Nyoni uses unsettlingly playful surrealism in this account of a malign uncle and the family mythmaking that effaces his crimes
‘Impunity is growing’: French celebrities call for law to crack down on sexism and sexual violence
The future of work
Soaring number of migrants trapped in Yemen face abuse and starvation, say NGOs
Opinion
From Colombia to Syria justice is possible for survivors of sexual violence in war
Clara Sandoval
April 2024
The ‘man who repairs women’ on rape as a weapon and how the world forgot the DRC
The overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction is an affront to women
Moira Donegan
Rights and freedom
Reparations to be paid to survivors of wartime sexual violence in Ukraine
UK Foreign Office holding secret talks with Sudan’s RSF paramilitary group
March 2024
Russia’s weaponising of sexual violence, and Ukraine’s response, reveals a grim war of values
Kateryna Busol
Opinion
Men enthusiastically express their heterosexuality in Ghana, so why is being queer so unacceptable?