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April 12, 2022 News

Epidemic of Sexual Harassment on Indonesian Campuses Continues due to Culture of Impunity

On October 27, 2021, a female student entered the office of Syafri Harto, the dean of the political science school at Indonesia’s Universitas Riau in Pekanbaru, and her thesis supervisor. She said she was stunned when Syafri started flirting with…

A Universitas Riau student, who accompanied a sexual harassment victim in Pekanbaru, holds a protest sign after the defendant was acquitted. It reads, “Mr. Judge, how would you react to your daughters or sisters being molested?”

November 16, 2021 News

What Governments Should Learn from The Climate Activists

“Nothing about us without us” – that was the call from the indigenous rights advocate Ghazali Ohorella from the Alifuru people in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia during a panel at the climate summit in Glasgow. This plea was echoed by many…

Georgina Wabano and her mother cooking traditional food for school children in Peawanuck, ON, December 18, 2019. : © 2019 Daron Donahue

November 16, 2021 News

COP26 Is Over – What’s Next for Forests, Coal, and Fossil Fuel Finance?

The Glasgow climate summit (COP26) produced a new global pact—as well as a bilateral agreement between the United States and China and a host of multilateral declarations—committing governments to take increasingly ambitious steps to address the…

12 November 2021, United Kingdom, Glasgow: A poster calling for better climate protection is held aloft during a protest outside the grounds of the UN Climate Change Conference COP26. Photo by: Christoph Soeder/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

November 1, 2021 News

What’s Needed for the COP26 ‘Forest Deal’ to Deliver for People and Planet

The United Kingdom and Indonesia are expected to announce a “Forest Deal” to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 on November 2 at the global summit on climate change. Whether this is cause for celebration will depend on who will sign on to it,…

A child carries palm kernels collected from the ground across a creek at an oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, November 2017.

October 29, 2021 News

UK Needs to Provide Genuine Leadership on Fossil Fuel Financing

In the leadup to the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, COP26, the United Kingdom has sought to position itself as a leader in global efforts to end government support for fossil fuels. The UK’s Special Envoy to COP26, John Murton, announced…

Pumpjacks at an oil well site near Epping, N.D., Oct. 1, 2018. © 2018 Jim Wilson/The New York Times/GDA via AP Images

October 6, 2021 News

With the Climate Summit Straight Ahead, the UK Takes a Wrong Turn

“Grow up!”, Boris Johnson told world leaders in his address to the United Nations. The British Prime Minister warned that all countries must commit to major changes ahead of the global climate summit in the UK, at the beginning of next month. If we…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson addresses the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, September 22, 2021.

August 23, 2021 News

The International Community Must Send a Message to the Taliban and Stand with Afghanistan’s Women

No entity that treats women as the Taliban did in 2001 should be taken seriously on the global stage

The day after the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, a handful of women protested on the city’s streets. They held up signs and chanted, demanding women’s rights. Two days later, protesters – led by women – marched with the…

Women walking Nadir Khan Overlooking Kabul womens rights us withdrawl

June 24, 2021 News

Climate Action Must Take into Account Women’s Right to Land

Climate action plans have to include measures to redress women disproportionately affected by deforestation and plantation expansion.

On a rainy day in April 2018, I rode a small speedboat along the Kapuas River in West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, headed for three tidal swamp villages, whose residents had protested against the expansion of oil palm plantations on their farmland and…

November 12, 2020 News

Accountability for Congo’s Palm Oil Workers

After Pledging Reforms, UK Development Bank Should Implement Them

A United Kingdom development bank, CDC Group, has taken another step toward addressing human rights abuses at oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In May, the bank committed to reforming its complaints mechanism and adopting a…

July 8, 2020 News

COVID-19 Doesn’t Excuse Lombok’s Discriminatory Dress Code

A new dress code for female civil servants in Indonesia’s Central Lombok regency should concern all Indonesians. On June 26 the Central Lombok regent, Moh. Suhaili Fadhil Thohir, instructed all female Muslim civil servants to wear a “…

On July 3, for the first time, dozens of female civil servants participated in their weekly morning assembly wearing niqabs.

February 4, 2020 News

UK legal case a wake-up call for garment companies

An ongoing legal case in London could provide the impetus for significant reforms to improve human rights protections for workers in the garment industry. The UK legal action doesn’t relate directly to clothing companies, but it sounds a warning that…

August 19, 2019 News

UK Rape Survivors Face ‘Digital Strip Searches’ and Other Deterrents to Justice

New Home Office data has revealed that a mere 1.5 percent of rapes reported to police in England and Wales led to a charge or summons between April 2018 and March 2019, down from nearly 14 percent three years earlier. And an analysis released July 31 of…

A rally held in support of the woman at the centre of the Belfast rape trial in which all four defendants including Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding were acquitted of all charges, Belfast, March 31, 2018.

April 17, 2019 News

Whoever Wins Indonesia’s Presidential Election, Indigenous People Will Lose

On Wednesday, Indonesians go to the polls to determine their next president. For one demographic, the stakes of the vote, regardless of the results, remain uncertain: the country’s indigenous peoples. Indigenous rights groups that represent…

May 9, 2018 News

When Will Britain Step Up on Burma?

Over the last nine months some 700,000 ethnic Rohingya in Burma have been driven from their homes across the border into Bangladesh by the Burmese military. The attacks have been described by the UN as “a textbook case of ethnic…

Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River with an improvised raft to reach to Bangladesh in Teknaf, Bangladesh, November 12, 2017. Picture taken November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain TO FIND ALL PICTURES SEARCH REUTERS PULITZER

March 8, 2018 News

International Women’s Day is Moment to End Abusive ‘Virginity Tests’

Indonesian President Joko Widodo last week tweeted his support for International Women’s Day by declaring that “building Indonesia, we need tough women.” That message suggested support for a day dedicated to “empowering women in all…

Military personnel take part in a ceremony in Banda Aceh August 17, 2007. REUTERS/Tarmizy Harva

February 1, 2017 News

If You Don’t Want Child Brides in Bangladesh, Don’t Accept Them Here in Britain Either

“But child marriage is legal in the UK—so why shouldn’t it be allowed here?" Those were the words of a Bangladesh government official who I met to discuss the terrible harm child marriage causes in Bangladesh, like depriving…

December 21, 2015 News

Dispatches: Will UK keep its promise to protect domestic workers?

The UK government says it wants to end modern slavery. But if that’s true, why has it been stalling on a key reform which would help protect migrant domestic workers from abuse at the hands of their employers? …

October 26, 2015 News

Obama Meets Jokowi

There are lots of reasons why President Barack Obama is meeting with Indonesian president Joko Widodo today in Washington. Indonesia doesn’t often get the attention it deserves, but it is a key country with major links to the United States. It’s in the G7…

July 21, 2015 News

One Year After the Girl Summit

A year ago today activists attended the Girl Summit, a global meeting hosted by the UK government to agree on action to end female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage within a generation. Sitting in the audience, I listened to the promises about…

Belkis, 15 years old, holds her one-year-old son in her mother’s house which she returned to after the husband she was married to at age 13 abandoned her.

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