What’s Current: Women in India turn to surrogacy after losing employment due to Covid-19

  • Women professionals in India are increasingly turning to the surrogacy industry after losing employment or having their salaries cut as a result of Covid-19.
  • A video of a woman in Indonesia being abducted in order to be forcibly married sparked national outcry over the practice of bride kidnapping, prompting government officials to declare a renewed effort to end the custom.
  • The number of femicides in Mexico has increased by 9.2 per cent during the coronavirus pandemic, which some women’s rights activists attribute to lockdown measures requiring women to remain at home while in abusive relationships.
  • A new study on the health impacts of racism for black women found that those who reported experiencing racial discrimination on a daily basis were 2.75 times more likely to show signs of poor subjective cognitive functioning as compared with women who did not report being subjected to daily racism.
  • UK government funding to curb the practice of FGM was reduced by 76 per cent in spite of data highlighting hundreds of new cases each month.
Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve Gluck is a writer and advocate for women's sex-based rights and creator of Women's Voices, an audio library dedicated to bringing awareness to feminist texts and speeches.