A large proportion of working women in Pakistan find it tough to juggle between values at home and at work, women head only 12% of the largest NGOs in the US and 27% in the UK, Pashtun poetry has long been a form of rebellion for Afghan women  and the gang rape of a woman journalist in India’s financial capital has triggered street protests. Read more to find out about women in the news.

Economic empowerment: Women overcome several barriers to make their mark

A large proportion of working women witness contrasting values at their workplaces and houses. Many arrive in burqas and change into contemporary dresses at their workplaces out of fear that full knowledge of their working conditions will at best, hurt their loved ones, and at worst, force them to quit. Read more here.

Women in leadership: ‘It’s not going to work the way we’re doing it’

Women head just 12% of the largest NGOs in the US and 27% in the UK. So how do the women at the top feel about it. Despite advocacy in international development organisations to alleviate poverty for the world’s women, the sector has still not come of age when it comes to women’s leadership. While the staff is largely female the highest positions of many of the organisations are still held by men. Read more here.

Who owns Bangladesh?

No one knows exactly how unequal the distribution of property is in Bangladesh. But there is agreement that the share held by women is tiny. In 1993, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that women in Bangladesh owned just 3.5% of the country’s agricultural land. Twenty years on, this share has almost certainly shrunk further, to perhaps as little as 2 %. Read more here.

Why Afghan women risk death to write poetry

Pashtun poetry has long been a form of rebellion for Afghan women, belying the notion that they are submissive or defeated. Landai means “short, poisonous snake” in Pashto, a language spoken on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The word also refers to two-line folk poems that can be just as lethal. Read more here.

Gangrape reignites debate about women’s safety in India

The Mumbai police arrested all the five suspects accused of raping a young photographer as a similar attack on a female officer in eastern India reignited an angry debate about the safety of women in the country. Read more here.