Search Results for: sexual harassment

Recent Afrobarometer survey data (Round 8, 2019-2021) paints a stark picture with 86% of Kenyans and 93% of Ghanaians expressing intolerance towards the LGBT community. This high level of intolerance exists despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteeing non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. Furthermore, across Africa, laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual activity remain commonplace. [...]

Scotland’s controversial Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into force on Monday. The law intends to unite existing hate crime laws, along with creating several new offenses, most notably criminalizing “threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred.” Stirring up racial hatred has been an offense since 1986. However, [...]

When one creates a social media account, one is bound to the host platform’s privacy policies and community guidelines. Each user knows that should they violate these rules, they risk losing their account. How, then, have so many people managed to use social media to exacerbate the plights of Afghan women and girls? As I [...]

The plight of women’s rights in various countries reflects a complex interplay of legal, cultural and societal norms that significantly disenfranchise women and girls, threatening their human rights and dignity. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Nigeria present challenging environments where women’s rights [...]

German prosecutors and law enforcement carried out raids against 45 individuals on Thursday who were suspected of posting hate speech against women online. The General Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt, along with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and other law enforcement agencies, led the raids. The raids form part of the government’s coordinated initiative [...]

Reports of bias incidents in New Jersey increased by 22 percent from 2022 to 2023, according to preliminary data released by the state’s attorney general Thursday. The preliminary data shows there were 2,699 bias incidents reported to New Jersey law enforcement in 2023. Anti-black and anti-Jewish bias remained the most common motivations for racial and [...]

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India took suo moto cognizance on Wednesday of human rights violations that took place in the Sandeshkhali district of West Bengal. Suo moto cognizance is the right of the NHRC to accept cases on their own, without them moving through the traditional legal processes like a complaint or [...]

The Malaysian federal court declared several Kelantan state Sharia laws to be unconstitutional in a judgement on Friday. The decision followed a petition deposited by lawyer Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid and her daughter, Tengku Yasmin Natasha Tengku Abdul Rahman, to challenge the constitutionality of provisions of the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Wednesday that France had infringed upon the rights of a woman who was found guilty of defamation after accusing a company executive of sexual harassment at her workplace. The accusations were emailed to six individuals, including internal and external members of her company. The ECHR, in its [...]

Hafsa Kanjwal is an Assistant Professor of South Asian history at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where she has taught courses covering the history of the modern world, South Asian history, and Islam in the modern context. Most recently, Kanjwal authored a book titled “Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian Occupation.”  In a conversation with JURIST’s [...]