Somalia’s coronavirus lockdown has led to a huge increase in female genital mutilation (FGM), with circumcisers going door to door offering to cut girls stuck at home during the pandemic, according to Plan International. The crisis is undermining efforts to eradicate the practice in Somalia, which has the world’s highest FGM rate, with about 98% of […]

Calls to a national domestic abuse helpline rose by 49% and killings doubled weeks after lockdown, a report by MPs has revealed. Following the “surge” in violence, the report called for a government strategy on domestic abuse during the pandemic. MPs also said “safe spaces”, where victims can seek help, should be rolled out to […]

A surge in abuse-related searches could be a sign people are identifying themselves as victims for the first time, an expert says. Victims of domestic abuse have been reaching out for help in ever increasing numbers. Research has revealed a significant rise in online searches relating to domestic violence during the lockdown and since the spread of coronavirus increased. […]

Around the world, as cities have gone into lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, the mass efforts to save lives have put one vulnerable group more at risk. Women and children who live with domestic violence have no escape from their abusers during quarantine, and from Brazil to Germany, Italy to China, activists and survivors say […]

“I was taken on the pretext that I was going for a fun outing,” says Masooma Ranvali. “Little did I know that it would turn out to be one of the most horrible moments of my life. It was done very surreptitiously.” Ranvali, who was seven years old at the time, says her grandmother took […]

Mohammed Abdul Shakur, 46, spent years on the run after killing 26-year-old Juli Begum and daughters Anika and Thanha, aged five and six, on New Year’s Day 2007 An abusive husband will be sentenced on Thursday for murdering his estranged wife and their two young children. Mohammed Abdul Shakur, 46, spent years on the run […]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – It’s time to shatter the silence around violence against women in the Kurdistan Region. That’s the message of an exhibit that opens Monday in Erbil and is both a memorial to the women killed in 2019 and a tribute to the people working on the front line helping Kurdistan’s women. “We […]

A Birmingham uncle has been jailed after trying to force his niece into a marriage in Pakistan – where she was “kept prisoner” for over a year. The victim, now 21, was ubjected to savage beatings at the hands of her relative and one occasion had a gun put to her head. She eventually managed […]

Yasmin Khan, director of The Halo Project, argued that the criminalisation of forced marriage and the build-up to it led to more prosecutions and the decline since then was due to the issue being put on the backburner. The campaigner, whose national charity supports victims of honour-based abuse, said the decline in prosecutions and convictions stemmed […]