- Thailand is revising surrogacy laws to allow foreigners to rent Thai women’s bodies. Proposed changes also allow a woman’s eggs to be commercially exported. Thailand had previously restricted the industry after an Australian convicted pedophile, David Farnell, was granted custody of a girl born through a Thai surrogacy clinic.
- More than a quarter of women under 50 globally have experienced domestic violence by a male partner in their lifetime, according to an analysis of research. Around one in seven said this had occurred in the past year, which amounts to nearly 492 million women worldwide.
- Women surpassed men for the first time in the acceptance rate at Japan’s medical schools for the 2021 academic year. In years prior, major medical universities were found to have systematically and deliberately lowered women’s scores to deny them admission.
- A BBC investigation of the social media app Telegram found large groups sharing thousands of secretly filmed, stolen or leaked images of women in at least 20 countries. Personal details such as home addresses and phone numbers were sometimes posted alongside explicit pictures.
- The death of 21-year-old Maseray Sei after undergoing FGM in Sierra Leone has reignited calls to end the practice. Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of FGM, with 83 per cent of women and girls in the nation having been subject to genital mutilation.