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Supporters of a bill aimed at decriminalizing female genital mutilation demonstrate as parliament debates the bill in Banjul, Gambia March 18, 2024.
Gambia's parliament considers overturning ban on female genital cutting
Gambia’s National Assembly voted Monday to advance a bill repealing the country’s ban on female genital cutting. The vote sent the bill to committee, buying opponents three months before repealing the ban is up for a final vote. If it passes, Gambia will become the first nation to roll back protections against cutting, potentially setting a dangerous precedent for other countries.
Over 75% of women in Gambia experience cutting, which usually involves removing the clitoris and labia minora of girls between the ages of 10 and 15 and often leads to infection and life-threatening complications during childbirth.
The practice was banned in 2015 but only enforced for the first time last year. After three practitioners were fined, influential imams in the Muslim-majority country called to repeal the ban, claiming that cutting is religiously and culturally important.
Anti-cutting campaigners protested outside Parliament during the vote, but only religious leaders and their supporters advocating for the repeal were granted entrance. Out of the 47 lawmakers present, 42 voted to advance the repeal in a parliament with only five women.
Opponents of the bill fear that if the ban is repealed, other laws protecting women and girls, like the ban on child marriage, will be next.
First lady Jill Biden makes remarks before U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order to expand and improve research on women's health.
Biden targets gender inequality in medical research
This initiative is long overdue. For most of history, scientific study has been based almost entirely on men – the government didn’t even require women to be included in medical research until the 1990s.
This has led to knowledge gaps on diseases disproportionately affecting women, like multiple sclerosis or endometriosis, and minimal understanding of conditions that affect women differently from men, like post-menopausal rheumatoid arthritis.
Just in time for the election. Biden knows he needs women to come out and vote if he is going to beat former President Donald Trump. He currently leads Trump by 6 points when it comes to suburban women and by 10 points among women overall.
Abortion and reproductive rights have proven to be mobilizing issues for Democrats, helping them win special elections, outperform in the 2022 midterms, and keep control of the US Senate. This initiative gives the Biden campaign another talking point as he tries to woo women to the polls in November.
The Graphic Truth: Female governance gap
March is International Women’s History month, but while women account for just over half the world’s population, the overwhelming majority of political leaders and policymakers globally are men. In fact, there are just six countries where women make up more than 50% of the national legislature, and only 31 countries (out of 193 UN member states) in which a woman is either head of state or head of government. Furthermore, only one G7 country - Italy - currently has an elected female leader. While some countries have introduced controversial gender quotas at various stages in the electoral process as a bid to increase female participation, there's lots of progress still to be made. Here's a look at the facts and figures.
Women in power: Chile’s Michelle Bachelet
Whose job is it to keep an eye on the governments that kill, torture, and displace people? The officials who turn back asylum-seekers, abuse migrants, jail journalists, or smash the skulls of peaceful protesters?
That's more or less a day at the office for Michelle Bachelet. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights since 2018, the former two-time leftwing president of Chile is perhaps the most visible and influential voice on human rights in the world today.
Calling out the the worst. As High Commissioner, her job is to promote and monitor governments' protection of universal human rights and freedoms, as laid out in UN declarations and international law. Unjust detention, torture, repression of journalists, and discrimination are just a few of the targets of her work.
Her office has issued searing reports on, among other things, horrific abuses in the Philippines under tough-guy President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs" campaign; the surge in killings by Brazilian police under Brazil's gun-loving; far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and the erosion of human rights under the current government of Sri Lanka, whose leaders themselves are implicated in crimes committed during the civil war that ended there in 2009.
One of Bachelet's most influential reports to date was issued in 2019, on the human rights and rule of law crisis in Venezuela under the regime of strongman President Nicolas Maduro. It was a tricky undertaking — Maduro himself had invited the investigation, perhaps believing that Bachelet's left-wing bonafides would make it possible to turn the report into an exculpatory propaganda coup for his regime. No such luck. The 19-page report detailed a raft of abuses right as the world was keenly watching the (now largely defunct) opposition movement of Juan Guaidó.
She brings a personal perspective to this work. Bachelet was a teenager in Chile when rightwing General Augusto Pinochet took power in a coup in 1973. Bachelet's father, an Air Force General who opposed Pinochet, was arrested and died in prison after being tortured. Two years later, Bachelet and her mother were jailed by Pinochet's henchmen and subjected to psychological abuse themselves.
They fled into exile. But after several years abroad, Bachelet returned to Chile to study medicine and work in the Chilean health ministry where she developed a reputation among Chileans as a compassionate fighter on behalf of those left behind in a country that, despite its economic successes, is also one of the most unequal in the world.
Her election as Chile's president in 2006 was a watershed. Not only was Bachelet the first woman president in Chile's history, she was also the first president from the left since the end of Pinochet's regime, and the first female president in Latin America elected on her own merits (Argentina's Isabel Perón and Cristina Kirchner are welcome to disagree if they like). And the fact that she is an agnostic leftwing mother of three — "all of the sins together" she likes to say — added to the sense of change in a Catholic country where gender role expectations are often archaic.
She did not always succeed during her two, non-contiguous, terms as president. Her plans for expanding education and infrastructure fell short of their goals, partly because of flawed political strategy, and partly because of resistance from an established business and political elite hostile to change. But she also took criticism from some of her own supporters for her decision to take a pragmatic, non-confrontational approach to dealing with the legacy of the dictatorship in a country that is still deeply divided over the past.
Does her current work have an effect? Critics say that the High Commissioner's office is a toothless body, good at pointing out problems but powerless to solve them. Most countries don't take kindly to having their abuses exposed. (Bolsonaro even reacted with a swipe at Bachelet's dead father.) And any immediate successes, like Venezuela quietly releasing several political prisoners on the eve of her report's publication, are both small and rare.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council, one of the main audiences for her reports, is riven by geopolitical rivalries among the permanent members (China, Russia, the US, UK, and France), which often deadlock the ability to address human rights abuses.
But at a time when democracy and rule of law are suffering globally — both because of authoritarian impulses in democracies and more assertive strongmen in autocracies — it is important to simply say and prove: these people's rights are being abused, these people's freedoms are being curtailed, these things are happening right now.
Michelle Bachelet's power is, then, to act as the world's most powerful voice for the voiceless. And in 2021, there are a great many people still waiting to be heard.
This article is part of GZERO Media's Women in Power Series, profiling female leaders around the world who hold positions of decisive power and influence in global politics.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that Eva Perón was president of Argentina, instead of Isabel. We regret the error.
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The day women around the world flooded the streets
A global look at the celebrations, protests, and riots spurred by International Women's Day, March 8, 2021. It was a day that millions of women across the world took to the streets to demand that their voices be heard.
Watch the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer episode: Why the pandemic has been worse for women: UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Taiwan's first female president has become a transformational leader for the self-governing island despite the growing threat from China. Here are a few things to know about Tsai Ing-wen, the woman in the world Beijing fears the most.
Women in power — Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen
There is perhaps no woman in the world whom China fears more than Tsai Ing-en, president of Taiwan. When Tsai, an outspoken advocate of Taiwanese independence, campaigned for the presidency in 2016, Chinese state media questioned whether a woman could lead the self-governing island. She won, becoming Taiwan's first female leader.
Four years later, Beijing raised doubts about her not only because she is a woman, but because she is unmarried and has no children. She won again, this time in a landslide widely seen as a major blow to Beijing.
Today she is one of the region's most transformational leaders — pushing Taiwan to punch above its weight in global affairs, turning it into a beacon for gender equality in Asia, and overseeing one of the most effective responses to the pandemic. All of this, of course, while dealing with the growing threat that China, under Xi Jinping, will make good on its long-standing pledge to reunify Taiwan with the mainland — by force if necessary.
Here are a few aspects of Tsai's policies and approach that you should know.
Cat vs wolf. Beijing's increasingly assertive foreign policy — including on reunification — has been dubbed "wolf warrior" diplomacy after a recent blockbuster Chinese film of the same title. But faced with the wolf, Tsai instructed her top diplomats to view their much smaller country's strategy as that of a cat, nimbly using soft power to promote Taiwan as peace-loving and compassionate — the antithesis to China's belligerence and bullying.
When China moved to end democracy in Hong Kong, for example, Tsai offered political asylum to Hong Kong citizens fleeing oppression. In the early stages of the pandemic, while Chinese suppliers were squeezing countries desperate for PPE, Tsai donated 50 million Taiwan-made face masks to nations in need.
Tsai is fully aware that she has no choice but to be creative in foreign policy under China's immense global pressure. After all, only 15 countries currently recognize Taiwan. And while the US has shored up its support for Taipei in recent years, even Washington is wary of provoking China too much (for now) on such an existential issue for Beijing.
COVID crusher. Tsai was sworn in for her second term last May, when Taiwan had already emerged as an early success story in the global fight against the coronavirus. To date, the island of 23 million people has registered only 10 deaths and less than a thousand cases, while returnees are fueling an economic boom.
Like her Kiwi colleague Jacinda Ardern, Tsai succeeded by trusting science, allowing public health experts to guide the severity of the response, and by giving clear and consistent guidance to her people. She also made Taiwan a symbol of global cooperation by working with the World Health Organization despite not being a member (China has blocked Taiwan's unofficial observer status since 2017).
Tsai's pandemic management initially sent her domestic approval ratings through the roof. They have declined somewhat since, but Taiwan's president is still considered one of the very few world leaders who has beaten the pandemic.
A champion for generational change. Beyond staring down both China and COVID, Tsai has also made a significant contribution to the modernization of Taiwan's society. That has a lot to do with her widespread support among a new generation of Taiwanese.
Tsai's base is overwhelmingly young and urban. Most of her voters have only faint memories of authoritarian rule until the early 2000s. They identify more as Taiwanese than both Taiwanese and Chinese, don't want to become part of mainland China, and favor progressive policies like same-sex marriage (which Taiwan legalized in 2019, a first for Asia).
Taiwan's president, 64, is not from this younger generation. But she has embraced change, for instance by leading the charge to boost female representation in parliament (now at 42 percent, the highest in the region). Tsai has also taken bold steps to promote gender equality in politics and business, as well as by taking on the cultural relics of sexism in Taiwanese society: last October she got on social media to urge men to stop gifting young girls with golden hairpins, which symbolize traditional feminine subservience in Taiwan.
What's next for a lame duck? Tsai has almost three years left as president, and term limits mean her time is up after that. But these three years mark a critical period in which Tsai will guide Taiwan out of the pandemic, while also navigating through an increasingly fraught US-China relationship.
She has been defying traditional stereotypes and Chinese pressure for years now, but her biggest tests may be yet to come.
This article is part of GZERO Media's Women in Power Series, profiling female leaders around the world who hold positions of decisive power and influence in global politics.
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The gender gap revealed!!
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel convenes a world leader Zoom on gender inequality, the accusations fly fast and furious.
Watch more PUPPET REGIME.
Protesters gather during the Women's March 4 Justice in Melbourne.
What We’re Watching: Australian women demand change, Mexico’s immigration crackdown, US vs ISIS in Mozambique
Australian women are fed up: Australia's conservative government is facing intense scrutiny after tens of thousands of women marched across the country earlier this week to protest sexual abuse and harassment, which they say is rife — including within the "old boys' club" of politicians in Canberra. The protests follow a spate of recent rape allegations made by former staffers against powerful Canberra insiders, including the sitting Attorney General Christian Porter. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come under fire for siding with Porter, who vehemently denies the decades-old rape allegations, and for initially refusing to back a thorough investigation. The country's next federal election isn't until next year (though it could come sooner) but the opposition Labour Party has already benefited from the outrage at Morrison's Liberal party, and is pulling ahead in the polls.
Mexico cracks down on US-bound migrants: In the weeks after US President Joe Biden took office, Mexican authorities detained more than a thousand migrants from Central America who were making their way towards the US. Biden has pledged to make his immigration policy more humane than his predecessor's — he has stopped the deportation of unaccompanied minors and allowed asylum seekers to remain in the US while their petitions are processed. But he is now contending with a surge of arrivals that officials say is now the worst crisis along the US southern border in decades. Last month, US border agents detained or expelled the highest number of people in two years. The US has pledged to do more to address the violence and poverty that are driving more and more people to flee their homes in countries like Honduras and El Salvador. But in the meantime, the pressure is mounting not only on Washington, but also on Mexico, which is concerned about large numbers of undocumented migrants crossing its territory, particularly if they are being smuggled by criminal gangs.
US helps Mozambique fight ISIS: US special forces are training Mozambican marines as part of the local military's latest push to expel Islamic State-allied militants who control vast swaths of northern Cabo Delgado province. The insurgency has caused a major humanitarian crisis: more than 2,500 people have been killed and over 700,000 have fled their homes over the past four years, while kids as young as 11 have been beheaded by the insurgents, according to Save the Children. But for Mozambique it's also about the cash: the insurgents control a key port with access to the country's lucrative offshore natural gas reserves. Meanwhile, as neighboring countries like Tanzania watch the ISIS foothold nervously, Maputo is running out of options: when Russian mercenaries didn't get the job done, the Mozambicans then turned to South African hired guns, and finally to the EU (which offered training but no boots on the ground). Now it's America's turn.