Artwork by Eiko Ojala
Towards Equality
2024 Edition
To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, Sparknews has partnered with 16 news outlets from across the globe to try and show what the world is like for girls and women in 2024.
From March 1st to 15, over 30 compelling stories have been shared 170 times across their platforms in 9 languages, reaching over 501 million people worldwide.
Here’s a look at some of them, in English:
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Gender Equality, a Responsibility We All Share
By Towards Equality 🌎 Biases against women have a way of permeating every area of our lives. So it’s no surprise that they show up in journalism, impacting whose stories get told, and how. This collaboration is an effort to try and go against misconceptions and oversimplifications.
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The Women Workers Who Are Subsidizing Global Public Health
By The Fuller Project 🇺🇸 For many experts, the struggles of community health workers during the Covid-19 pandemic laid bare the lie behind a common trope used to justify their lack of pay: that women are innately motivated to serve their communities.
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South Korea: Where Feminism Has Become Taboo
By France 24 🇫🇷 In this special edition of The 51%, Annette Young heads to South Korea, which, despite its impressive economic record, consistently scores poorly for gender equality among advanced nations.
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Sex Ed: Beyond Risk Prevention
By elDiario.es 🇪🇸 Educators in Spain are taking a holistic approach to sex ed, covering topics that range from desire and body image to equality, identity and diversity.
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Sex Ed in the Crosshairs
By elDiarioAR 🇦🇷 Argentina’s 2006 Sex Education Law faces new opposition despite its positive impact.
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Brazil’s Christian Feminists
By Folha de S.Paulo 🇧🇷 Catholic and evangelical women are organizing to defend women’s bodily autonomy.
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Morocco: How Tibu Africa Uses Sport to Transform Women’s Lives
By L’Economiste 🇲🇦 Founded in 2011 in Morocco, Tibu Africa aims to create genuine pathways to personal and professional success through sport. Programs launched by this NGO have had a major social impact, and managed to reach more than 250,000 participants in 2022, with a focus on girls’ and women’s emancipation and their socio-economic empowerment.
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What if Only Women Voted in Germany?
By Deutsche Welle 🇩🇪 What would Germany look like if only women voted? Which parties would be in power and which decisions might have gone differently?
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Stealth Beauty Salons
By Hasht-e Subh 🇦🇫 Afghanistan’s female stylists, now unemployed, are desperately seeking ways to circumvent and roll back Taliban restrictions.
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A Blueprint for Stemming Gender-Based Violence
By elDiario.es 🇪🇸 More than two decades ago, Spain embarked on reforms to curb violence against women. It is now considered a model for other European countries.
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Metle Metlik, the First Women’s Sexuality Platform in Lebanon and the Arab World
By L’Orient-Le Jour 🇱🇧 Two female doctors, Sandrine Atallah and Gaël Abou Ghannam, are on a mission to inform Arab women about sexuality and reproductive health, in an innovative way.
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Women’s Pain: Tackling the Taboos
By Folha de S.Paulo 🇧🇷 Endometriosis affects one in 10 women, impacting their personal and professional lives, yet it is often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and left untreated.
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“I’m Not in Charge”: Brazil Fights Domestic Abuse by Educating Violent Men About Patriarchy
By Les Glorieuses 🇫🇷 At group meetings around the country, men who have been convicted of domestic abuse are learning about how the patriarchy shapes their behaviour, and what they can do about it.
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Deciphering the Unexplained Pay Gap
By The Asahi Shimbun 🇯🇵 Japan’s Mercari was perplexed when a study showed a pay gap between its male and female employees. The company set out to find explanations—and solutions.
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Gender Bias in AI: “We Underestimate the Human Component of These Tools”
By Le Temps 🇨🇭 AI may be revolutionary, but it remains heavily gender-biased. Estelle Pannatier, Policy and Advocacy Officer at AlgorithmWatch CH, explains how these biases occur and discusses existing and future legal regulation.
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Women-Led Peacebuilding Creates Bridges Across Rival Tripoli Neighborhoods
By L’Orient Today 🇱🇧 Residents of the Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhoods used to wage bloody clashes against one another. Now they’re coming together for civic projects thanks to this NGO.
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Protesting with a Pen
By Hasht-e Subh 🇦🇫 An exiled Afghan journalist chronicles violence against women in her home country, one heartbreaking story at a time.
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Women’s Football Is Gaining New Ground in Morocco, and Mentalities Are Shifting, Too
By L’Economiste 🇲🇦 In recent years, the landscape of Moroccan sport has changed significantly due to the emergence of the Atlas Lionesses, the national women’s football team. An investment that has also brought about a shift in mentalities in Moroccan society.
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Fight Against Domestic Violence: The Spanish Model
By Arte 🇫🇷/🇩🇪 In Spain, public services offer financial aid and emergency housing to victims, as well as tools to achieve long-term emancipation through work, training courses, job opportunities… A model of long-term support.
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How Fog Harvesting Liberates the Women of Sidi Ifni in Morocco
By L’Economiste 🇲🇦 At an altitude of 1,225 meters, at the top of Mount Boutmezguida in Morocco, an innovative technology captures water droplets from the fog. This ambitious project has already changed the lives of 300 women and girls, who are freed from the burden of having to collect water.
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Kenya: Land Rights for Women
By Daily Nation 🇰🇪 For more than a decade, Kenya has increased women’s land ownership rights. Benefits have rippled through the economy and society, although more remains to be done.
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Despeñaderos Hits a Double
By elDiarioAR 🇦🇷 A small Argentine town gives battered women hope for financial independence through jobs that fight climate change.
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India’s Solar Power Push Delivers an Unexpected Bonus Empowering Rural Women
By The Fuller Project 🇺🇸 In India, rural communities are increasingly adopting solar power, and there is growing evidence that women are among the biggest beneficiaries.
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“We Can Finally Exhale”: Women Left Out of 9/11 Benefits Eligible for Health Care, Compensation
By The Fuller Project 🇺🇸 The decision to add uterine cancer to the list came after multiple stories from The Fuller Project and its partners about how women were systemically left out of the government’s World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP).
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Mother’s Tree
By The Asahi Shimbun 🇯🇵 A Japanese nonprofit prepares foreign trainees for the challenges of pregnancy.
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Ukraine War Transforms Doctor’s Hospital Into “Horror Film”
By Deutsche Welle 🇩🇪 Anesthesiologist Valentyna Lisnycha cares for wounded soldiers and civilian blast victims at Dnipro’s Mechnikov Hospital, just a hundred kilometers from the frontlines.
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Sex Matters: Medical Research Overlooks Women
By The Fuller Project 🇺🇸 Scientists still ignore sex differences in testing new treatments.
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An Audio Guide to Decode Centuries of Gender Bias in Art
By Le Temps 🇨🇭 Why do kidnapping scenes abound on painting rails? What do these nude women bathers so often painted tell us? Created by French historian Julie Beauzac as part of Geneva’s Les Créatives festival, an audio guide invites you to decipher the paintings from a feminist point of view.
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Radio Begum
By Hasht-e Subh 🇦🇫 A radio station that educates Afghan girls and treats oppressed women like queens.
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From Exploitation to Activism
By Folha de S.Paulo 🇧🇷 When an abused Bolivian domestic worker finally dared to inquire about her legal rights, it changed her life. Now, she is helping change the lives of other immigrants in Brazil as well.
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In Kenya, “Medical” Genital Cuttings Are on the Rise
By Arte 🇫🇷/🇩🇪 When the country banned female genital mutilation in 2011, few expected this traditional practice to migrate to underground clinics.
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Saving Kabukicho Streetwalkers
By The Asahi Shimbun 🇯🇵 Japan takes a new approach to helping women trapped in “the world’s oldest profession.”