Latest Women's rights News
Afghans fleeing Taliban urge Trump to lift refugee program suspension
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghans who fled after the Taliban seized power appealed Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump to exempt them from an order suspending the relocation of refugees to the United States, some saying they risked their lives to support U.S. troops. An estimated...
Iraqi lawmakers pass a bill that critics say legalizes child marriage
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s parliament passed three divisive laws Tuesday, including amendments to the country's personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalize child marriage. The amendments give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including...
Former Planned Parenthood president, women's rights activist Cecile Richards has died at 67
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Cecile Richards, a national leader for abortion access and women’s rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 tumultuous years, has died. She was 67. Richards died Monday at home in New York “surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her family...
Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered ratified
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Friday that the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered a ratified addition to the U.S. Constitution, making a symbolic statement that’s unlikely to alter a decades-long push for gender equality. “The Equal Rights Amendment...
Taliban deputy tells leader there is no excuse for education bans on Afghan women and girls
A senior Taliban figure has urged the group's leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy. Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on...
Thousands march in Washington days before Trump takes office
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people from around the United States rallied in the nation's capital Saturday for women's reproductive rights and other causes they believe are under threat from the incoming Trump administration, reprising the original Women's March days before President-elect...
Timeline: Key dates in the century-long battle over the Equal Rights Amendment
The struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment started more than a century ago when leading suffragist Alice Paul first proposed it shortly after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. The ERA, if formally recognized as the 28th Amendment, would make gender...
Austin, the first Black defense secretary, ends his term marred by Afghanistan but buoyed by Ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin bid farewell Friday to the forces and personnel he has led through a tumultuous term that had three major military crises, a global pandemic and a personal brush with cancer that became a flashpoint for the way it was mishandled. In...
A rebranded Women's March returns before Trump's inauguration as progressives seek to regroup
When Elisabeth Bramble and her sister stepped off the Washington Metro to join the massive crowds during the 2017 Women’s March, she counted it as one of the most powerful moments of her life. On Saturday, she will board a 2 a.m. bus full of North Carolinians headed to the nation's...
Germany welcomes release of German-Iranian rights activist from prison in Iran and her return home
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's foreign minister on Monday welcomed the release of a German-Iranian rights activist from prison in Iran and her return to Germany. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on the social media platform X that it's “a great moment of joy that Nahid Taghavi...
