Category: News

The 54th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is currently meeting in Geneva to consider the progress of countries that have signed the CEDAW Convention in securing equal rights for women and men. The Committee will also hold a general discussion on access to justice.  The CEDAW Committee’s sessions are a key opportunity…

The 57th session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which opens next week, provides a unique opportunity for Governments to send a strong message that violence against women must end. Soroptimist International is urging that CSW must deliver a strong outcome document, which addresses the needs of gender-violence victims and works to prevent…

A new Chief Executive, Lynn Jackson, will join the Soroptimist International headquarters team in Cambridge, UK,  in the first week of March. "Please join me in giving a warm Soroptimist welcome to our new CEO, Lynn Jackson", says Soroptimist International President Alice Wells. "Lynn has had experience within the private, public, charity and NGO sectors.  Her experience…

Domestic abuse survivor, campaigner and author Leslie Morgan Steiner has lent her support to Soroptimist International’s day of action on violence against women.     Well educated and affluent, Leslie’s story highlights that domestic abuse can affect anyone, no matter what their background. In her 2009 memoir, Crazy Love, she writes: "If you and I met at one of our children’s birthday parties,…

Husbands, not strangers or men with guns, are now the biggest threat to women in post-conflict West Africa. According to a report by the International Rescue Committee, based on data collected over 10 years, domestic violence is proved to be the "most urgent, pervasive and significant protection issue for women in West Africa". It calls…

The brutal, deadly attack on a young student in New Delhi, India, in December sent a shock-wave through India and the world. For a while, violence against women was in the global media spotlight. But without continued, concerted action the world-wide pandemic of violence against women will continue. What can you do to make the world safer for women? …

Soroptimist International is calling on the Government of China to withdraw the death sentence for a woman who killed her husband after suffering months of torture and to take immediate action against the disturbing level of domestic violence in the country. Li Yan, due to be executed any day, is currently being held at the Anyue County…

"We need to wake up to the violence that millions of women are facing each day.  What better way to let our voice be heard than by standing on a bridge on the 8th March 2013, and speaking out against Violence!" Talat Pasha, Federation Programme Action Chair for SI in Pakistan, has called on Soroptimists around the…

Life-coaching in Iceland, school stationery in Madagascar, condoms in Kenya and books in Trinidad and Tobago; here are pictures of just a few of the recently-reported actions that Soroptimists have taken around the world to educate, empower and enable women and girls.  You can read more about the projects below.   A sale of second-hand clothes,…

Soroptimist International has written to the Prime Minister of India to express shock and outrage at the recent horrific gang rape and murder of a young student in Delhi, and to call on the Indian Government to act “with passion and conviction” to prevent such acts of violence against women.   “This particular case has come…