As deadly heatwaves sweep through cities in India, China, the US and Europe amid the climate crisis, new research has found that rising temperatures are associated with a substantial rise in domestic violence against women. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday found a 1C increase in average annual temperature was connected to a rise of more than 6.3% in incidents of physical and sexual domestic violence across three south Asian countries. The study tracked 194,871 girls and women aged 15-49 from India, Pakistan and Nepal between 2010 and…
Tag: Women
Marriages in China drop to record low despite government push
The number of marriages in China last year dropped to 6.83 million, the lowest since records began in 1986. Data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed the number of couples tying the knot in 2022 fell by about 800,000 compared with 2021, beating that year’s record low. China’s marriage rate has declined rapidly over the past 10 years, since peaking in 2013 when nearly 13.5 million couples wed, nearly double last year’s count. Policymakers in China are increasingly worried about the stubborn downward trend in marriage – and…
Professor accused of sexually assaulting teenager as China’s #metoo movement struggles forward
Followers of China’s struggling #MeToo movement have been gripped by a series of recent allegations, including against a professor at a high-profile university, which went viral online and been reported by state media. The professor at China’s largest public university, has been suspended after being accused of the historical sexual assault of a then-16-year-old girl. The case, which has been reported by multiple state media outlets, is the most recent in a #MeToo movement which is often hampered by censorship and crackdowns on activists. It comes just weeks after allegations…
Chinese woman appeals in battle for right to freeze her eggs
A single Chinese woman has begun an appeal in her legal battle for the right to freeze her eggs, a procedure only available in China to married couples. Xu Zaozao took legal action in 2019 after a Beijing hospital refused to freeze her eggs but a Beijing court dismissed her case in July 2022. Her case is widely followed in China, where women’s rights have become an increasingly prominent issue and the falling birthrate is of growing concern. Xu says she wants to freeze her eggs to give herself the…
China’s censored feminist movement finds solace in Sally Rooney
When the manuscript of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends first arrived in Peng Lun’s inbox, he hesitated. It was 2017, and Peng – who had worked in publishing for a little over a decade – had just started his own house in Shanghai, Archipel Press. He had heard about the clamour from publishers that resulted in a heated auction for the rights to the young Irish author’s first novel and thought it might be worth having it translated into simplified Chinese. He decided to commission readers’ reports from two women.…
High-profile China #MeToo case settled in US out of court
One of China’s biggest and most divisive #MeToo cases, which had been set to play out with extraordinary transparency because of its US location and was closely watched by millions inside China, has been settled out of court. Liu Qiangdong, a 49-year-old online retail billionaire who also goes by Richard Liu and is known as China’s Jeff Bezos, had been accused of sexually assaulting a then 21-year-old Chinese graduate when she was studying at the University of Minnesota and he was visiting on a business trip. Liu has always denied…
HRT: inside the complex global supply chain behind a $20bn market
In the centre of the factory stand 31 reactors: giant metal globes that can hold up to 10,000 litres of liquid each. Every week, gleaming stainless steel drums arrive by truck at this plant on the outskirts of Oss, in the Netherlands. Their contents are poured into the reactors through a funnel, dissolved, and then heated to boiling point. Standing by one of the vast containers, the factory manager, Robert Dam, compares it to a “cooking pot”. Peering inside, we can see the light liquid bubbling away. At Dam’s factory,…
Chinese government attempts to boost birth rate with new policies
The Chinese government has pledged to improve pre- and post-natal services to encourage more people to have children and reiterated its intent to “discourage” abortions as it seeks to turn around a declining birth rate. The measures announced by the country’s national health commission include a pledge to make fertility treatments more accessible. For several years authorities have flagged expanding IVF access to single women but it remains available only to married couples. A court challenge by a woman was recently struck down. The commission said it would guide local…
Woman at centre of China #MeToo case vows not to give up after appeal rejected
The woman at the centre of a landmark case in China’s #MeToo movement has vowed not to give up after a court rejected her appeal for an apology and damages. In 2018 Zhou Xiaoxuan accused a high-profile state TV presenter, Zhu Jun, of forcibly kissing and groping her during a 2014 internship. The case inspired many others to share their experiences of sexual assault and caused a social media storm. On Wednesday the court in Beijing ruled after a closed-door hearing that evidence submitted by the 29-year-old was “insufficient” in…
Papua New Guinea election: what’s at stake?
In the coming days, Papua New Guineans will head to the polls to vote in the first national election in five years. A struggling economy, the impact of the pandemic and growing frustrations about failing public services are among the leading issues. The results of the election will be important not only to the country’s almost 9 million people, but also for the increasingly complex geopolitical landscape in the wider Pacific region. The election process Of the 2,351 candidates running in the national election, 118 members will be elected. Members…