Lawyer Siti Kasim has been striving to empower Malaysia’s marginalized and oppressed communities to speak up for themselves. Vociferous, unapologetic, doesn’t suffer fools gladly: that about sums up Siti Zabedah Kasim.

I’d actually stumbled upon them by accident. I had been researching unusual household gadgets made in Asia, when links to pages featuring beauty gadgets popped up.

#Beboldforchange. This is the motto of this year’s International Women’s Day. The motto itself suggests that change is not something which can be made easily. Are we the ones who boldly need to make the change? Or do we just have to boldly accept changes? What does making bold changes entail?

The 22-year-old Devki had a dream: She wanted to be a taxi driver in Delhi, a city marred by violent crime against women and touted as the “rape capital of the world.” Film director Manuela Bastian accompanied this journey and spoke to WTO blogger Roma Rajpal Weiss.

Bhutan is often described as the last “Shangri-La” in the world. The country is undergoing a tremendous modernization process. There are better roads, schools and healthcare. More people are receiving an education.

When I take a look around the world on “International Women’s Day” I am filled with horror.  Millions of my fellow women are fighting for sheer survival. Fighting for a life free from permanent violence, free from fear of their male surroundings. Fighting for an independent existence on a par with the male part of the population. And they are doing all this without much real hope of immediate success.

Women’s March in Sydney, January 21, 2017

When I first moved to Australia, almost three years ago, I had a completely different notion of women’s freedom, rights awareness, status at work and at home, and why not? It was the first time I was living permanently in a first-world country, moreover in the country with the highest human index for years in a row. I had to have expectations of a freer world for women.