On Sunday, the world watched while the Taliban executed a young couple who had eloped by stoning them to death. The couple said they’d eloped because the young woman was promised in an arranged marriage to a relative of her lover, and she did not want to marry him. Nader Nadery, a senior commissioner on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said in the New York Times, “We’ve seen a big increase in intimidation of women and more strict rules on women.” A recent Time Magazine cover story about a young woman maimed by the Taliban and recent opinion-editorials published by Human Rights Watch’s Rachel Reid and Tom Malinowski, have also served as reminders of the precarious status and future of Afghan women. Following the overthrow of the misogynistic Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the situation for women seemed to enter a promising era. A Ministry of Women was established, and a new constitution guaranteed women 25-percent representation in the legislature. But progress has been stymied in Afghanistan.
Read more »

This article is the first in a three-part blog series exploring the barriers to women’s advancement in Asia and how The Asia Foundation is working to address them.

By Jill Kosch O’Donnell

After months of advocating for access to credit from their local bank, the members of the District Women’s Business Forum (DWBF) in Sylhet, Bangladesh, have something to celebrate: 12 of them recently received bank loans to grow their businesses. One has already opened a new outlet for her business and hired 10 women to work there. Another has recruited five women for the planned expansion of her handicraft and garment enterprise. All of them are already in a position to repay the bank. Fifteen more loan applications are in the pipeline.

In many Asian countries, including Bangladesh, cultural tradition dictates that property and assets are almost always registered in the name of a male member of the household, denying Bangladeshi women the chance to gain collateral, needed to get bank loans to start businesses. Photo by Jon Jamieson.

These may be small numbers, but they represent a breakthrough that could add up for Bangladesh in the long run. Currently, women have extremely limited access to the capital that exists in their own country, which is a major impediment to expanding their businesses and creating jobs.
Read more »

By Lee Kyung-sook

In early March, the Cambodian government imposed a provisional ban on international marriages to Korean nationals. The purpose – as reported in a formal document to the Korean Embassy – was “to prevent the trafficking of Cambodian women.”

The business of Korean international marriage brokers boomed in the last decade. In 2005, marriages to foreigners accounted for 14 percent of all marriages in South Korea. Marrying women from developing countries, such as Cambodia, became increasingly popular in Korea as more Korean women from rural areas moved to cities to pursue work opportunities, making it more difficult for the remaining rural male population to find marriageable Korean women. In March 2008, the Cambodian government, citing fears of human trafficking due to falsely brokered marriages, banned marriage-brokering all together, allowing only “love matches.”
Read more »

By Carol Yost and Barbara Rodriguez

The International Violence against Women Act of 2010 originally introduced by now-Vice President Joseph Biden, was recently re-introduced in both houses of the 111th Congress after failing to come to a vote in the previous Congressional session. On February 4, Senators Kerry (D-MA), Boxer (D-CA), Collins (R-ME), and Snowe (R-ME); and Representatives Delahunt (D-MA), Poe (R-TX), and Schakowsky (D-IL) re-introduced this ground-breaking legislation in a seemingly anachronistic display of bipartisanship. The House bill (H.R. 4594) currently names 37 co-sponsors, the Senate bill 25. Both are now being reviewed by their respective foreign affairs committees, while the House bill is also being considered by the House Committee on Armed Services.
Read more »

By Dorie Meerkerk

If you ask Mrs. Sophorn from rural Pursat province in western Cambodia, protecting Cambodia’s threatened natural resources is one of the most important steps toward alleviating poverty in her country. Approximately 80 percent of Cambodians live in rural areas, with 71 percent depending primarily on agriculture (largely rice) and livestock for their livelihoods. To support themselves, poor families rely heavily on natural resources for income, often by harvesting and selling fish or forest products such as resin, honey, mushrooms, and rattan. Yet, these opportunities are threatened from natural resource degradation due to over consumption, land conflicts, and limited community control over illegal usage.
Read more »

By Mohammad Bashir and Elizabeth Grant

Humaira Aman* was born in Kabul, and along with thousands of other Afghans, was forced to relocate to a refugee camp in Pakistan after the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. While relocated in Peshawar, she pursued a medical education at a local university for three years. However, in 1997, the Taliban decreed that the university shut down, and Humaira was forced to put her studies on hold. Several years later, seeking any opportunity to continue her education, Humaira enrolled in Gawhar Shad University, an institution established by the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) in Peshawar. In 2006 she received a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and subsequently became the first woman assistant lecturer invited to teach at the university. Four months ago, Humaira returned to Kabul to work with AIL and assist in their mission to provide education, training, and health services to women, children, and other disenfranchised groups throughout Afghanistan.
Read more »

By Nadia Tariq Ali

The status of women has long been a source of political controversy in Pakistan. The country’s former military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, enforced the draconian Hudood Ordinance in 1979, launching his infamous Islamization program that created tremendous hardships for women living in Pakistan. For example, it is well-documented that many unfortunate women who were raped during that period were convicted of adultery. At the same time, many of the criminals, who committed such crimes, exploited legal loopholes and went free.

But it was not some democratic political administration that eventually provided the antidote to Zia’s rule of disaster.
Read more »

By Véronique Salze-Lozac’h

Never short of innovative ideas and certainly not lacking entrepreneurship, Cambodian businesswomen have now created a Facebook page to network and exchange tips and ideas about doing business in the Kingdom.

More than 200 businesswomen, professionals, students, academics, and even male supporters, have already joined the group to share economic, social, and cultural challenges faced by women when starting or managing a business or when pursuing a career in Cambodia.

At her business in Kampon Chhnang, Cambodia, Kheang Son processes bamboo sticks which she sells to furniture makers in Thailand and Holland. As a result of her mother's success, her daughter, pictured here, is now studying English and tourism in Phnom Penh. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Read more »

Millions of women in Asia are on the rise – taking advantage of expanding economic and educational opportunities, political participation, increasing rights and influence within their societies. At the same time, others remain trapped in a cycle of illiteracy, poverty, or ill health, often lacking the means to raise themselves and their families out of it. We’ve found over more than a half century that mobilizing women is a powerful way to accelerate progress. Investing in women fundamentally strengthens families, and improving social, economic, and political opportunities for women improves societies as a whole. The Asia Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment Program seeks to identify change agents, create new political and economic opportunities for women, build constituencies for reform, develop leaders, increases women’s rights and ensure their personal security. Watch a photo slideshow celebrating women of Asia.

Photo by Karl Grobl.

By Tserenkhand Choijinnyam

The vehicles traveling from Khovsgol Province in northwest Mongolia to Ulaanbaatar have to spend the night on the way because it’s such a long journey. These roads that connect Mongolia’s rural countryside with Ulaanbaatar have provided new opportunities and access to thousands of people who otherwise would have remained isolated. However, for some people like Undarmaa, this journey means much, much more: it helps put an end to her worst nightmare.
Read more »