'This report provides the first update of gender equality as smart economics: A World Bank Group Gender Action Plan (GAP), a year after implementation began in January 2007. The plan commits the Bank Group to do more to help achieve gender equality by more fully utilizing its comparative advantage in the economic sectors and in analytical work. The plan's objective is to advance women's economic empowerment in Bank client countries to promote shared growth and accelerate implementation of Gender more...

'A family preference for sons over daughters may manifest itself in different ways, including higher mortality, worse health status, or lower educational attainment among girls. This study focuses on one measure of son preference in the developing world, namely the likelihood of continued childbearing given the gender composition of existing children in the family. The authors use an unusually large data set, covering 65 countries and approximately 5 million births. The analysis shows that son p more...

For girls around the world, exercising their right to education is sometimes a very risky enterprise. While some strides have been made to enhance gender parity in education, little attention has been paid to some of the structural barriers that keep girls out of school, impede their performance in class as well as their overall retention.

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and partners are requesting funding proposals from women’s rights and HIV/AIDS coalitions in southern and eastern Africa with the aim of developing submissions to the Global Fund that address the vulnerabilities of women and girls.

'The Union Ministry of Health is examining the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act with a view to raising the time limit for abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks. What would the moral and ethical implications of this move be? And why has the women’s movement in India been strangely silent on these important developments?'

'What is the law’s position on maintenance for the wife and children, after a divorce? What happens if the courts take years to arrive at a final decision regarding maintenance? Can the wife and children avail of interim maintenance during pendency of the proceedings?'

'There are three axes along which sex workers are marginalised -- the criminality associated with their work, the morality that keeps them ostracised, and the informality of their labour which deprives them of bank accounts, insurance, or employment security. Recognition of their labour and economic contribution is one of the first steps in mainstreaming sex workers and according them dignity and rights. The Sangini Women’s Cooperative Bank in Mumbai’s red light area has made a good beginnin more...

'In Punjab, the state with the lowest sex ratio in India at 798 girls per 1,000 boys, the Sikh clergy has been roped into the effort to save the girl-child. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee is planning to set up cradles to receive unwanted girl-children at gurdwaras, while the state administration has already started its own cradle baby scheme. Will this strategy work in a state where 50 discarded female foetuses were found at the bottom of a well in 2006?'

'For centuries, social reforms for widows and other single women in India have meant the setting up of ashrams and widow re-marriage. The widows who have banded together to contest their exclusion under the banner of the Ekal Nari Sangathan, in Rajasthan and other states, reject those dated solutions. These women are demanding their rights and dismissing the welfare approach. They are bringing colour back into their lives.'

'Not only is gender-based violence on the rise, it has also taken on insidious forms that are justified in the name of faith, community, even development. In the run-up to the 16 Days Campaign against gender-based violence which begins November 25, Infochange provides a primer on violence against women.'