The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to healthcare. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’ most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
Cuba
+ Hospital patients suffer during Cuba’s three major blackouts
Cuba has experienced several major blackouts since mid-March, affecting sick patients and new mothers in dark hospitals across the country. News outlets have reported that it could be the worst energy crisis in Cuba. Cuban electricity has been primarily supported by Venezuelan oil, but in January, after the Trump administration captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, he immediately ordered the country to stop sending oil to Cuba.
The U.S. has maintained an economic embargo against Cuba since the 1960s, and for decades has imposed tariffs on Cuba for commodities like arms and oil. Now, the U.S. is targeting other countries with fines and tariffs if they sell oil to Cuba. After three power outages, certain parts of the country have been able to regain power, but many of the poorer cities and regions of Cuba are still facing daily blackouts that have caused food shortages and the black market sale of gas at nearly $40 per gallon.
Hospital patients have been hit the hardest by these blackouts, some days or weeks at a time. There has been a sharp increase in preventable deaths in Cuba’s hospitals, according to nurses and doctors interviewed by The New York Times. Ambulances have stayed inactive because of a lack of gas, and vaccines are unable to be delivered to Cuba because of flight cancellations due to a lack of jet fuel. Pharmacies can’t get medicine delivered either, and have stayed largely empty.
Reports from Cuba have shown nurses hand-pumping ventilators for sick babies, and mothers giving birth with the aid of iPhone flashlights in the dark. Mexico has responded by supplying Cuba with some humanitarian aid, like food and formula for newborns, but some mothers have reported they haven’t received any of that aid.
Iran
+ Central Command error is to blame for striking a girls’ elementary school in Iran
Information from The New York Times reveals that the U.S. is at fault for the missile strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28, killing 175 people. The site of the school sits on the same street as buildings used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy and was in an area that continues to be a major target for the U.S. military. The school had originally been a part of an adjacent military base, but was later turned into an elementary school. It is unknown when the building was converted into the school.
“If journalists and civil society groups, using only open source access, could relatively quickly establish the school was separated from the wider compound and visibly marked, the U.S. military, with all its tools at its disposal, surely could have done so prior to the attack,” U.N. special rapporteur on the right to education, Farida Shaheed, said. “They had an obligation to do so.”
The missile used in the strike was proven to be an American-made missile. President Trump has evaded questions by reporters about the tragedy and has made claims that he has no knowledge of the strike, but has attempted to put the blame on Iran.
An ongoing investigation into the tragedy shows that U.S. Central Command, which directs operations in the U.S. military, used outdated information when planning the strike, which had been provided to them by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the Times. The school building was still labeled as a military base by the DIA at the time of the strike. The investigation is still trying to uncover why the coordinates were not verified by Central Command.
Iraq
+ Prominent feminist activist assassinated
On March 2, Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights defender, was killed in an armed attack in Baghdad. Throughout her career, Mohammed remained defiant despite persistent death threats, including from ISIS and other armed groups, most recently protesting against Iraq’s recently adopted Personal Status Law.
Mohammed was best known for co-founding the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which operated 10 safehouses for survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence and other vulnerable minorities. Over two decades, she worked to protect women from gender-based violence, including so-called “honor killings,” supporting hundreds of survivors.
OWFI reported that two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on Mohammed outside her home; she later died in the hospital. Amnesty International called the attack part of a growing pattern targeting rights activists, likely by Iran-aligned units of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and joined Human Rights Watch in urging the Iraqi government to investigate her death. She was 65.
Morocco
+ Gay asylum-seeker deported to third country she has no ties to, where homosexuality is illegal
Early last year, 21-year-old Farah and her partner journeyed from Brazil to the U.S. border in Mexico and asked for asylum. Originally from Morocco, where homosexuality is illegal, the two had fled to Brazil when their parents learned about their relationship and attempted to have them killed. When they reached the border, they asked for asylum, but were immediately detained. In reports from the LA Times, Farah says she was detained for nearly a year and was transported between deportation sites in Louisiana and Arizona. Although she was ultimately denied asylum, an immigration judge granted her a protection order, which stated that she could not be deported back to Morocco.
Three days before Farah’s hearing for release, she was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was put before a staff member of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a U.N.-affiliated organization that helps people decide to return to their country of origin. According to Farah, the staff member made it clear that asylum was not an option and that she could either return to Morocco of her own volition or be deported to Cameroon, a place Farah had never been to.
Monika Pronczuk, a reporter for the Associated Press, found that African countries like Cameroon were being paid by the U.S. to serve as third-countries, nations that deportees did not live in prior to coming to the United States, nor hold citizenship in, despite having protection orders like Farah. Other countries part of the deal include South Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea. The Trump administration had been using this as a loophole to force people to return to their country of origin since February 2025. However, earlier this year, a federal judge found the loophole illegal. Unfortunately, Farah and dozens of others with similar cases were deported before the 2026 ruling.
International Olympic Committee
+ IOC restricts transgender participation in Olympics
On March 26, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved a new policy restricting eligibility for women’s events to athletes classified as “biological females,” as determined through a one-time gene screening. The IOC says the test, conducted via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample, provides “highly accurate” evidence of “male sex development,” though the scientific basis has not yet been published.
The move revives a controversial approach: similar SRY testing in the 1990s produced false positives and raised concerns about penalizing natural genetic variations, ultimately leading to the abandonment of sex verification testing before the 2000 Games. While the new policy states that it will include exemptions for athletes with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) and other differences of sex development (DSDs), how these exemptions will be applied remains unclear.
The policy will take effect at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and replace all prior IOC guidelines, including their 2021 framework emphasizing inclusion and non-discrimination. Previous guidelines stipulated that “No athlete should be precluded from competing or excluded from competition on the exclusive ground of an unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status.”
The decision is indicative of a global anti-gender movement that has swept across the world in recent years. Critics, including legal experts in a March 25 joint statement, have called the policy a “regressive move,” warning that it violates human rights protections related to genetic testing and privacy. The Paralympics, an independent organization, is not bound by the IOC’s decision.
Gaza
+ Child marriage surges amidst war
Amid widespread displacement, poverty and institutional collapse during the ongoing war in Gaza, families are increasingly turning to child marriage for their daughters, seeking financial relief or perceived protection for girls from wartime sexual violence. Internationally recognized as a form of gender-based violence, child marriage exposes girls to severe physical, psychological and sexual harm.
Child marriage rates in Gaza, which had declined from 25.5 percent in 2009 to 11 percent in 2022, have been on the rise since the war began in 2023. A recent UNFPA study found that 71 percent of respondents reported increased pressure to marry girls under 18, with more than 400 marriage licenses issued to girls aged 14 to 16 in the short period in which they conducted the study. Due to the collapse of formal reporting systems, these cases are likely undercounted.
As of December 2025, nearly 10 percent of newly registered pregnancies were among adolescents, many of whom face malnutrition and limited access to healthcare. Only about one quarter of Gaza’s health facilities can currently provide emergency obstetric and newborn care, while access to reproductive health supplies remains severely restricted in the territory.
Amal, who was just 14 when she was forced to marry, told the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) that she “married to escape one hardship, only to find another.” Now facing possible motherhood, she fears “how I will feed my child, and whether my body can survive pregnancy and childbirth.”
South Korea
+ Seoul holds the 41st Women’s Strike in South Korea for International Women’s Day
For the 29th year in a row, South Korean women have been paid 29 percent less than their male counterparts—holding the largest wage gap among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Japan holds the second-largest wage gap among OECD countries at nearly 21 percent, while the United States has the fourth-largest gender pay gap at 17.3 percent, according to 2024 figures. Women in South Korea also hold more than 20 percent of low-income jobs in the country, as opposed to the 11.1 percent of men. Women who do freelance work in the country are unable to receive accident insurance and maternity leave, according to the Asia News Network.
On March 8, hundreds took to the streets in Seoul as women went on strike from paid and unpaid labor for the day—to recognize the societal impact of women’s daily labor and to acknowledge International Women’s Day. Organized by the Korean Women’s Association United (KWAU), hundreds of women attended the rally to call for gender equality, wearing purple, a more recent symbol within the country’s growing feminist movement. According to the Korea Times, the KWAU gave the Women’s Movement of the Year award to all the women who demanded the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who called for scaling back gender equality policy.
People at the rally heard from Choi Mal-ja, who was awarded the Women’s Movement of the Year award last year. She was convicted of battery in 1964 for biting the tongue of a man who tried to rape her, but was found not guilty in a retrial in September 2025 for acting in self-defense.
“Without the realization of gender equality, it is difficult to expect the completion of democracy,” Choi said in her speech. “The ministry will always move forward together toward substantive gender equality.”
Global
+ International Women’s Day and the 70th Commission on the Status of Women
March 8 marked the 115th International Women’s Day, celebrating women’s social, political and economic achievements while highlighting ongoing gender inequality. The UN’s theme, “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls,” underscored the urgency of advancing equal rights worldwide. According to the most recent report from the latest United Nations Secretary-General, women globally still hold just 64 percent of the legal rights available to men. UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Anne Hathaway led their official commemoration on March 9.
The celebration came just weeks before the UN’s 70th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which focused on ensuring access to justice for women and eliminating discriminatory laws. Established in 1946, the CSW is the main global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality, and the rights and the empowerment of women, made up of 45 United Nations Member States. The agreed conclusions to be adopted by the member states this year were written with the goal of “promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and addressing structural barriers.”
In an unprecedented move, the United States requested a recorded vote on the commission’s conclusions, and then became the only country to vote against them. Among its objections were the “ambiguous language promoting gender ideology,” “vague, unqualified commitments to sexual and reproductive health that can be interpreted as implying abortion rights,” and “censorship language on regulating artificial intelligence.”
At the Commission’s opening, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said that the backlash against women’s rights “feels as though we are forced to fight the same old battles again and again, battles from 80 years ago.”
