Women rights

An imam in Mali is living in fear after backing a new family law which no longer obliges wives to obey their husbands, angering Muslim groups.

The thousands of women parading along Lebanon's sunny beaches this summer in skimpy bikinis or strolling the city's pavements in miniskirts or shorts will all technically be breaking the law.

A Campbell woman of Yemeni descent says she was abducted by her parents and taken to Hermitage, Pa., where they threatened to send her back to her homeland.

A nationwide campaign has been launched in the United States to urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to denounce the election of Iran to the United Nations' commission on the Status of Women. International human rights and women’s rights leaders, attorneys, scholars, columnists, Iranian human rights activists, media figures, women in the arts, and other prominent women signed an open letter, quoted below. A partial list of signatories follows and additional names are to be publicized this week.

Number of young women fleeing domestic violence increased tenfold.

France is moving towards a ban on wearing face-covering Islamic veils in public, with the government set to examine a draft bill next month amid heated debate over women's rights and religious freedom.

Sudan's first female presidential candidate knows she stands no chance against President Omar al-Beshir, but says her ambitious bid will allow future generations of women to strive for the country's top job.

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl has died of injuries to her genitals four days after a family-arranged marriage, a human rights group said.

Abu Dhabi's live poetry talent competition, The Million's Poet, features a Saudi woman poet who lashes out at hard-line clerics, reported the United Kingdom's The Independent on Wednesday.

A Saudi woman divorced her husband after he violated a condition in their marriage contract that stipulated he would not marry another woman.