On April 24, 2014, an eight-storied garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh, leading to the death of more than one thousand people.

Pakistani actress Meera

In today’s tech-savvy and exhibitionist society, the most part of our digital life is consumed by some sort of revealing images. However, in Pakistan, the matter is somewhat different.

Nearly 1.2 million people in Ethiopia are infected with the deadly Human Immunodeficiency Virus, also known as HIV. Women and young girls are particularly under threat because of social, political and economic discrimination. Women Talk Online reader Anne Marie Hankins stumbled across this piece of information when her co-passenger on a flight spoke about the plight of mothers in the African country.

…”There is a particular crisis for women—a vast confidence gap that separates the sexes. Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities.

“Soon after drinking my tea, I felt dizzy and dozed off. The next thing I remember is that I was sitting in a police station. They told me, I was drunk and had desecrated the Holy Book, Quran. I was surrounded by a violent mob and people belonging to religious parties were condemning me. No one was listening to my cries. All they wanted was punishment for a crime that I had never committed.”

Social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook are fun and innovative. At the click of a mouse, you can make friends and show your support for social causes. But what happens when your ‘friends’ turn against you? What if the smart doctor you met on a social network has actually begun stalking your profile?

Enisa: recalling the horrors of wartime rape
Photo: Armin Smailovic

“I am a Bosnian Muslim woman who has survived sexual violence during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I now speak in the name of all women who have survived sexual torture and violence in conflict, regardless of ethnic affiliation, the color of their skin, faith, age or nationality… I wish to convey to the women of the world who have survived similar horrors to speak up and let the truth be known, because they have nothing to be ashamed of.