Recently, I ran across this New York Times article by Graham Bowley, who writes about his quest to speak with Sahar Gul, a young 15-year old girl who had been subject to countless abuses at the hands of her husband’s family, who tortured her and kept her in a basement bathroom for five months after…
There are estimated to be around 5,000-8,000 young people in the UK being forced into marriage. David Cameron has announced he wants forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. However, not everyone agrees that this will help the victims. The government feels that the signal they send out to not criminalise it is a…
I’m incredibly excited that one of my favorite organizations – International Bridges to Justice – has launched a TED talk by Founder & CEO, Karen Tse. IBJ is also featured as #3 on Huffington Post’s “Best of TED 2011 Countdown.” Take a few minutes to watch Karen’s talk below — and to join us in…
I wanted to quote an excellent blog post by Karen, a grad student in international affairs: We are trained to think like short term consultants. Everything is project/program based. We are trained to measure everything through statistics, through case studies. A project seems to be measured as “successful” if you get it funded by a…
During my time working with an Afghan NGO providing free legal services, I have heard many stories of women who have been imprisoned on false accusations or “moral crimes” such as adultery and running away. Running away is not even a crime under Afghan law, yet many women and young girls are detained and held…
Today, I am excited to announce an interview with Shemeer P, founder of maps4aid, a new innovative social media and SMS platform for recording and combating instances of violence against women in India. Tell me more about your background. I am 28 years old, and I work full time as a Consultant Civil Engineer for…
