In Mauritania, northwestern Africa, slavery is a fact of modern life. It’s estimated that 10-20 percent of the country’s 3.5 million people are still enslaved in a system rooted in ethnic discrimination. – Author: Robert Asher and Safa Faki

A man walks in front of an ad for a skin-brightening product © picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sen

It is an obsession that literally goes under the Indian society’s skin! “Don’t go out in the sun to play, you’ll turn into a dark-skinned witch and then nobody will marry you!” Sounds funny?!

© Aarthi Parthasarathy

Royal Existentials is a weekly web-comic series that uses Indian vintage art and imagery as a backdrop for contemporary dialogues. Members of the Mughal family contemplate on conflict, problems of patriarchy and feminism. The miniature paintings tell ironic stories of Queens and Handmaidens who talk about smashing Patriarchy.

Meena Kandasamy leaves no stone unturned when she wants to express herself. Probably that’s the reason why her anger and her angst reveal themselves in her poetry through her “dark and dangerous” language.  Meena’s poem, “Nailed”  from her book “Ms. Militancy” is a good example.

For women in India to walk with dignity and freedom, a social transformation as well as a change in the values, attitudes and male perceptions of women, by men and women, is needed. Dr. Kanchana Lanzet, member of the board of directors at UN Women in Bonn, gives us an expert opinion on why being a woman in India is so problematic and whether one can really do much about it. This is Dr. Lanzet’s first blog in the series.

Meena Kandasamy is an upcoming poet based in Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She writes on women’s themes and on the Dalits, member of the lower castes in India. Her poetry collection is called ‘Touch.” She spoke to DW blogger Roma Rajpal on being a poet and her passion for writing.