After years of living under house arrest, Liu Xia, the widow of late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, was finally set free by the Chinese government. She has now left China, leaving behind a painful history.

The women of the Apatani tribe, which lives in the Ziro valley of Arunachal Pradesh, India have a unique tradition. They wear large nose plugs and face tattoos. But contrary to popular assumptions of face piercing and tattoos, the Apatani women do not use them for reasons of beauty.

What can women’s rights activists in the West learn from the struggle of feminist movements in Iran? DW spoke with researcher Janet Bauer, who has extensively studied women’s issues in different cultural contexts.

In 1946, a French engineer came up with a scandalous new piece of clothing for women: the bikini, strips of cloth that revealed more than they hid on the beach and in the pool.

Many Afro-Germans have trouble finding hair products and stylists that understand their hair. Esther Donkor founded the online magazine krauselocke.de to fill the gap. The publication goes far beyond hair.

The World Cup has given Iranian women the chance to do what many take for granted — going to watch football matches. Activists are now pushing world football’s governing body FIFA to end the ban issue once and for all.

Saudi poet Hissa Hilal created a whirlwind in 2010 with her poems criticizing religious fanaticism. The documentary The Poetess follows her life after the uproar, in a Saudi Arabia undergoing great change.