Indian women hold candles and posters during a protest against two recently reported rape cases, in Ahmadabad, India, April 16, 2018 (AP photo by Ajit Solanki).

MUMBAI, India—In December 2012, in a case that generated international headlines, a 23-year-old physical therapy student was gang-raped by six men on a bus in New Delhi. After 45 minutes of torture, the woman—dubbed Nirbhaya, or fearless, by the Indian press, which is prohibited by law from naming victims of sexual assault—was thrown off the bus. Found in critical condition, she died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital less than two weeks later. The tragedy brought national and international attention to the issue of sexual violence in India. Following Nirbhaya’s death, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared, “While she may […]

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern talks to the media in Wellington, New Zealand (AP photo by Nick Perry).

New Zealand’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly last month to advance a bill that would decriminalize abortion and loosen restrictions on the procedure. Under current law, women can only obtain an abortion in New Zealand if they receive approval from two doctors, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern promised to change that while campaigning in 2017. The bill must pass two more rounds of voting before it can become law. According to Yanshu Huang, a research fellow at the University of Auckland’s Public Policy Institute, Ardern’s push for reform also reflects a broader change in public opinion among New Zealanders, toward more pro-choice […]

People protesting violence against women in Paris, July 6, 2019 (SIPA photo by Jacques Witt via AP Images).

PARIS—Helene de Ponsay hadn’t heard the word “femicide” until April, when police found the body of her older sister, Marie-Alice Dibon, stuffed in a suitcase, thrown into the Oise River. The 53-year-old Dibon, a pharmaceuticals and cosmetics specialist, was the 51st woman in France to be murdered by her partner in 2019. More than 50 deaths later, the word is hard to miss: in headlines, in presidential speeches, and plastered on buildings in cities across the country. Women’s rights advocates are now calling for femicide to be inscribed into the penal code. “How shameful that it took until now,” de […]