Inequality Kills: The unparalleled action needed to combat unprecedented inequality in the wake of COVID-19

The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. This causes direct harm to us all, and to the poorest people, women and girls, and racialized groups most. Inequality contributes to the death of at least one person every four seconds. But we can radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality. We can claw back extreme wealth through progressive taxation; invest in powerful, proven inequality-busting public measures; and boldly shift power in the economy and society. If we are courageous, and listen to the movements demanding change, we can create an economy in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.

Education for Women and Girls in Iraq

Women in Iraq are still acquiring equality and equity in various aspects of their personal and professional lives. Hence, it is essential to identify factors that influence their education, emphasizing equity as it fulfills lives with strength, success, and prosperity. This chapter presents key challenges that impede a prosperous educational climate that is fair among genders. The chapter presents cultural, economic, social barriers, and pushbacks against women's education in Iraq, the overall impact of education decline, among other factors that reduce equity for women. The author then presents various solutions and recommendations based on an analytical evaluation to achieve education access, equality, and equity for Iraqi women. The chapter calls to develop effective policies and programs that target the identified cultural, societal, and infrastructure obstacles to help improve women's education in Iraq and assure equality and equity.

Exploring cyber violence against women and girls in the Philippines through Mining Online News

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is not a recent phenomenon. What is new is the additional increasing threats that millions of women and girls face because of the rapid spread of ICTs and the expansion of social media. Cases of VAWG wherein ICT and social media are used as platforms by cybercriminals can be seen in the news media coverage. This study aims to understand and determine the trend and the state of cyber VAWG to raise awareness through mining online news websites. News articles were scraped from popular news websites between 2015 to 2020. The preprocessed articles (N=3,506) were analyzed by year using the Topic Keyword Model (TKM). It was observed that the cyber VAWG articles topic trends are increasing with most of the articles focusing on the topics “Online sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children” and “ICT-related violations of privacy”. Text mining methods may address the limitations of traditional qualitative approaches. Understanding the cyber VAWG issues by mining news articles is a novel approach that could help create programs and policies to address this societal concern. Additional studies should be conducted related to sentiment analysis of news data to verify and measure the influence of cyber VAWG-related topics. La violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas (VCMN) no es un fenómeno nuevo. Lo nuevo son los crecientes peligros a que se enfrentan los millones de mujeres y niñas debido a la difusión de las TIC y redes sociales. Los casos de la VCMN donde se utilizan como plataformas las TIC y las redes sociales se encuentran fácilmente por medio de la cobertura mediática. Este estudio tiene como objetivo la comprensión y la definición de la tendencia y el estado de la ciber-VCMN para crear conciencia por medio del análisis de los sitios web de noticias online. Entre 2015 y 2020, se recopilaron artículos de los principales sitios de noticias. Se utilizó el Modelo de palabras claves temáticas para evaluar los artículos preprocesados (N=3.506) por año. Se señaló que la mayoría de los artículos sobre ciber-VCMN se centraban en temas de «Explotación sexual y abuso sexual de niños en línea» y «Violaciones de la privacidad relacionadas con las TIC». El análisis de los textos ayuda a trascender las limitaciones de las metodologías cualitativas tradicionales. Comprender las preocupaciones de la ciber-VCMN mediante la extracción de artículos de noticias podría ayudar a crear iniciativas y políticas para solucionar este problema. Proponemos que se lleve a cabo una investigación utilizando análisis de sentimiento de los datos de noticias para verificar y cuantificar el impacto de los problemas relacionados con la ciber-VCMN.

Gender Inequality and Societal Oppression of Women in Pakistan

Gender inequality and oppression are common in most patriarchal societies. Pakistan, a developing country of the Global South, has been wrangling with gender discrimination and violence against women since its inception in 1947. Globally, Pakistan is ranked third from the bottom (151 out of 153) on the Gender Equality Index. While patriarchal norms can have severe consequences for women's rights, it is important to look at the different ways in which patriarchy can manifest across socioeconomic levels. This chapter discusses the experiences of women in the lower, middle, and upper classes of Pakistani society. Thematic analysis of interview data reveals an overlap of forms of oppression and abuse, including the pervasiveness of masculine hegemony, workplace harassment, and in-law interference after marriage, as well as other challenges unique to each social class. The importance of education for women and girls is highlighted, while acknowledging that education alone, without family and societal suppor, may not be enough to break the shackles of the patriarchy for Pakistani women.

Diagnoses and Procedures of Inpatients with Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Swiss University Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Female genital mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) can result in short and long-term complications, which can impact physical, psychological and sexual health. Our objective was to obtain descriptive data about the most frequent health conditions and procedures associated with FGM/C in Swiss university hospitals inpatient women and girls with a diagnosis of FGM/C. Our research focused on the gynaecology and obstetrics departments. Methods: We conducted an exploratory descriptive study to identify the health outcomes of women and girls with a coded FGM/C diagnose who had been admitted to Swiss university hospitals between 2016 and 2018. Four of the five Swiss university hospitals provided anonymized data on primary and secondary diagnoses coded with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and interventions coded in their medical files. Results: Between 2016 and 2018, 207 inpatients had a diagnosis of FGM/C. The majority (96%) were admitted either to gynaecology or obstetrics divisions with few genito-urinary and psychosexual conditions coded.Conclusions: FGM/C coding capacities in Swiss university hospitals are low, and some complications of FGM/C are probably not diagnosed. Pregnancy and delivery represent key moments to identify and offer medical care to women and girls who live with FGM/C. Trial registration: This cross-sectional study (protocol number 2018-01851) was conducted in 2019, and approved by the Swiss ethics committee.