It would be wrong to say that the situation for women in Afghanistan is all bleak, but the statistics do not look good.

Those few women who have tried to break through face tremendous challenges. So imagine the risk being taken by Herat’s chief prosecutor — the first female prosecutor in Afghanistan.

Appointed two years ago, Maria Bashir, 38, travels everywhere with six armed bodyguards, funded by the US justice department. Even so, last year a bomb went off in front of her house, killing one bodyguard, and her three children are considered such targets they can no longer go to school.

In Morocco, Nezha Nassi’s word means something. That’s because Nassi is a murshida, or guide, a female religious counselor recently trained by the country's Ministry of Religious Affairs to teach Islam and offer counseling in mosques, prisons, schools and hospitals - even to make house calls to work through the most intimate family problems.

Nassi is one of about 250 murshidas trained to occupy the same role as male imams, in every sense but leading prayer.

“This is spiritual, moral and physical counseling,” said Nassi.

The program is part of a worldwide movement to elevate the status of Muslim women scholars and leaders, said Daisy Khan, the New York-based founder of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity.

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052903182.html

Nearly half of the world’s smokers live in three countries - China, India and Indonesia - and many are picking up the habit at a very young age.

Dina Kania, a youth advocate for Indonesia’s National Commission for Child Protection in Jakarta, says the industry is aggressively targeting young people through sponsorship. Ms Kania says Indonesia’s government is hesitant to regulate the tobacco industry because of the tax revenue it provides - up to one-tenth of all government revenue in the country.

Ms Kania says without the Government’s help, the issue of smoking has grown too big for parents to deal with. “As parents of course, they do have the responsibility to prevent the children from smoking,” she said. “But we should bear in mind that smoking can no longer be perceived as a private issue.”

Jeddah - A 50-year old Saudi man has agreed to divorce his 9-year-old bride, after the marriage drew international criticism. The child’s mother, who opposed the marriage which took place when the girl was 8 years old, took the case to court last year.

The decision came after months of court hearings, criticism from the United Nations and an international media frenzy about Saudi Arabia’s human rights practices.

“This is a good step and I think the man did it because he was in a lot of pressure from everyone,” Wajeha Al-Huaider, founder of the Group for Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, told Reuters by telephone.

Al-Huaider, who campaigned for the child, said she hoped the pressure generated by the case would eventually lead to a law banning child marriages.

Istanbul - Gender and education differences have emerged from Turkey’s record unemployment figures, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Social Research. It shows more women are finding jobs while men with low education have borne the brunt of record-high job losses.

TDr. Gökçe Kolasin of Bahçeşehir University says women’s employment is actually rising despite an overall decrease in employment rates. “As of December 2008, annual growth in nonagricultural female employment has reached 9 percent," the study said. “Such growth is extraordinary during a period of crisis.”

“It looks like a majority of women are entering the labor market through self-employment. They either start working as cleaning ladies, or they start baking things at home and selling them, etc.”

As American forces work to revive Iraq’s tattered farming economy, they seem to have found an effective new weapon. Cows.

At the suggestion of an Iraqi women’s group, the Marine Corps recently bought 50 cows for 50 Iraqi widows in the farm belt around Fallouja, once the insurgent capital of war-torn Anbar province.

The cow purchase is seen as a small step toward reestablishing Iraq’s once-thriving dairy industry, as well as a way to help women and children hurt by the frequent failure of the Iraqi government to provide the pensions that Iraqi law promises to widows.

The early sign is that the program is working. Widows, many with no other income, have a marketable item to sell, as well as milk for their children.

Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/02/business/fi-iraqcows2