While women’s inheritance and property ownership are protected by the Lebanese Constitution, inheritance laws differ based on religion and sect, leaving disputes to religious courts and personal interpretations — and biases — of those laws
As men migrate north to the United States in search of better lives for their families, the women left behind are taking on many new community responsibilities once occupied by their husbands.
Twenty-five years of breathing in dust has led Mireille Mbale to drink milk when she can afford it; it is what she believes will guard her against lung disease. She makes less than $5 a day. Years of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s brash sun have dried her exposed skin.
On Tuesday, I wrote a piece for CNN calling to make 2013 The Year to End Rape. I know it’s wishful—there’s a lot to try to end: global legal failings that allow rapists to commit crimes with impunity; attitudes that blame the victim, leading to suicides and honor killings; misogyny that conditions men (and women) to view women and girls as less than human, as objects to be controlled.
