IN Swaziland, teenage girls are taught about sexually transmitted diseases, condoms and HIV testing information handed out at will as they learn that sex is dangerous and mostly for men. In India, The Justice Verma Committee’s recommendation on recognizing marital rape as an offence under criminal law was hastily swept aside by the Standing Committee [...]
The Team
Clara Vaz
Clara Ashley Gabriella Vaz is a full time writer and women’s rights consultant. She has a BA in Political Science from Laval University and a Masters in International Law from Kent in Brussels, and has worked for several organizations on human rights and gender issues, including UNICEF, HPCR International and the European Parliament. She recently spent seven months in Swaziland working on sexual violence and rape laws for SWAGAA and continuing her writing as communications officer for the Breast Cancer Network. Clara tweets at @ClaraVaz1.
Recent blog posts written by Clara Vaz
Roe v. Wade: We Need a Further Legal Move, if Only on Paper
There are some things that are only good on paper. Disastrous recipes. Bad dates with good resumes. Certain haircuts and, generally, photoshop. One thing not so good only on paper is Roe v. Wade. In 1973, the United States Supreme Court declared that privacy as defined under the due process clause of 14th Amendment of [...]
The Presidential Debates and Abortion in Canada
No one at work wanted to talk about the first presidential debate from last week. If you’re a woman, you especially don’t want to talk about it, because you weren’t even a part of it, all your issues, all your concerns, all the rabid attacks on your rights over the past year were completely ignored. Romney [...]
Is Your Religion Interfering with Your Orgasm?
Expressing support for the legalization of pre-marital sex in Morocco can get you killed. That’s what the editor of Morocco’s Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribia daily newspaper discovered when he expressed this support during a televised debate. Article 490 of Morocco’s penal code, based on Islamic law, criminalizes sex outside of marriage, with a man and women recently being jailed [...]
Feminism is Dead. Long Live Feminism.
Twice last week, in two different articles, did I read some concoction of ‘feminism is dead.’ It was, of course, in response to the horrific trial verdict for Pussy Riot, the Muscovite punk band who staged an impromptu jam session at an Orthodox church in the city, imploring the Virgin Mary to become a feminist [...]
Who Owns Public Spaces?
Last weekend I was at the gym, waiting for a fellow male bodybuilder to get off the pullup bars. Yours truly can do about 7-10 wide grip pullups unassisted of which she’s very proud, and that Saturday was a heavy back day. While I’m waiting, another gym guy comes up and asks me if I’m [...]
Saudi Arabia has Two Female Athletes Competing at the Olympics. So What?
This year marks the first year that all of the more than 200 countries represented at the Olympics have a female athlete as part of their delegation. Specifically, this year, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brunei all included women in the London Games. Saudi Arabia sent two judo athletes (who may be forced to compete without [...]
Is it Really a Happy Mother’s Day?
It is difficult being a mother. Mothers bear the brunt of burdens, plainly seen if you take a look at the measly ratings the United States received from the recently published Save the Children State of the World’s Mothers. Not only does the country rank 25th on the list of Best Places to be a Mother, it [...]
Newt Gingrich, Trayvon and The Invisible Race
Over the past few weeks there has been growing international outrage at the shooting of a young black teenager in Florida by an armed neighborhood watch man. I’m not sure I have much to add to this outrage, because so much has been quite brilliantly written on this by many social media partisans. I’ve done [...]
On International Women’s Day, a Woman’s Pleasure
Today was International Women’s Day. There were articles written by thoughtful well-meaning women and smart indomitable women, coming together to welcome our progress and caution about the obstacles yet to conquer. I couldn’t help but feel pre-emptively weary of reading these articles. These last few months have been such a scathing beating of American women [...]