A video depicting a chained woman in a dark shack in the Chinese city of Xuzhou went viral, racking up more than 1.9 billion views on Chinese social media. But the reaction by authorities to the video show how online outrage is often corralled and stripped of its more systemic critiques of the state.
In early July, Sierra Leone’s Cabinet approved the decision to draft a bill conferring a constitutional right to safe abortion. But once passed, the law will only be the first step in ensuring access to safe abortions and other reproductive health services in a country where unsafe abortions have dire health consequences.
The political left is not always a progressive choice in Latin America, as has become starkly evident in Peru, where the rights of women and the LGTBQ community have come under attack by political leaders from both the left and right. President Pedro Castillo, a former teacher and organizer from the rural province of Cajamarca, won election in 2021 against the right-wing candidate, Keiko Fujimori, with a radical-left platform that was pro-poor—but also socially conservative. Like his opponent, Castillo appealed to conservative religious sentiments that are gaining traction throughout the Americas. The policy impact of that religious stance is now evident, [...]
