By Deevia Bhana, Professor Gender and Childhood Sexuality, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Teenage pregnancy is often explained in simple terms. Girls are said to lack knowledge about contraception, take sexual risks or make poor choices.
But is it that simple?
For almost three decades, I have been researching how gender and sexuality come to matter in the lives…
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By Brianna Castro, Assistant Professor of Urban Sustainability, Yale University
In a waterfront settlement in Lagos, Nigeria, I watched from the shoreline as two men worked a stretch of lagoon from their canoe. One held the boat steady. The other dived underwater a few metres, then surfaced with a bucket full of sand, emptied it into the canoe, and went under again for more. They did this for hours, collecting as much sand as the canoe could hold without sinking before returning to shore.
That sand is sold to households and building sites across Nigeria’s largest city, including neighbourhoods much wealthier than the one the divers live in. It gets packed around…
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By GV Central Asia and Caucasus
One of the strongest realizations during my reporting was that digital violence often enters daily life disguised as normal behavior: Control becomes attention, surveillance becomes care, pressure becomes love.
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By Omid Memarian
Painting is a way of taking a position, through the creation of another possible space: a place of silence and beauty that, precisely by contrast, become a form of resistance.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari (right) and Hadi Ali Chattha, during a court hearing in Islamabad, Pakistan, December 5, 2025. © 2025 Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images (New York) – Pakistani authorities on September 17, 2026, rearrested human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha soon after the Supreme Court granted them bail, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately release the two and drop the criminal charges against them, which appear aimed to punish peaceful expression and human rights advocacy.The authorities had…
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Friday, September 18, 2026
Over 1,000 cases of sexual violence against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) in Ukraine have been documented from the start of Russia’s invasion to the end of July this year.
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By Jean Sovon
As in-person gatherings have become difficult to organize or too risky for citizens, online protest has become an increasingly common form of political dissent in Togo.
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By Amy Cannon, Associate Professor of Writing, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
For Annie Dillard, the sonic intensity of poetry was critical to every form of writing she published throughout her life.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A small metal enclosure which was used to hold detainees, reportedly for up to two hours, as seen during an unannounced inspection by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) at ICE's now-closed immigration detention center Florida Soft-Sided Facility (FSSF) also known as Alligator Alcatraz, in Ochopee, Florida, January 21, 2026. © 2026 DHS OIG/Handout via Reuters On September 11, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General published reports outlining findings from visits to Krome North Service Processing…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Petare, a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela, September 17, 2026. © 2026 Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC) – Venezuela needs to take urgent measures and carry out institutional reforms to protect people’s basic rights, Human Rights Watch said today, following its first official visit to the country since 2008. Human Rights Watch visited Caracas this week and met with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, other government officials, human rights groups, members of the opposition, journalists, relatives of political prisoners, foreign…
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