This week in Abuja, Nigeria, corporations from the U.S. and around the globe will attend the World Economic Forum on Africa. Yes, Nigeria. Where 234 schoolgirls (possibly more, according to some reports) have been kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram and remain missing. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan recently blamed the girls’ parents for his government’s failure to quickly find […]
Author: Andy Kopsa
Andy Kopsa is a freelance writer based in New York City. She has written for The American Independent, RH Reality Check and AlterNet. She is a native Iowan and former Iowa newspaper editor. She blogs at Off The Record and you can find her on Twitter @andykopsa
We All Are the Kidnapped Nigerian Girls
Nigeria’s radical Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram can be looked at through many lenses. They are active in the most populous country in Africa. They are waging terrorist war on Africa’s newly minted largest economy, blowing up bus terminals and killing innocents. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is sitting on the largest oil patch in Africa; […]
Kenyan Parliament Candidate Overcame HIV Stigma to Fight for Women’s Rights
During Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement in Kenya, a young Inviolata Mmbwavi stood by as the boys planted trees. Girls didn’t plant trees! Her mother thought, as did most Kenyan mothers at the time, that her daughter should be cooking. “You should be in the kitchen, you should be cleaning and scrubbing pots,” Mmbwavi remembers […]
New RFRAs Continue The War on Birth Control
The religious right has been trying to implement Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) on the state level for some time. But are they really about protecting the faithful?
Abstinence-Only: It’s Baaack
Reproductive-health experts breathed a sigh of relief in 2009 when President Barack Obama did away with over a decade of funding for abstinence-only funding under previous administrations (which had added up to more than $1.5 billion over ten years). But now, abstinence-only looks to be back on the conservative agenda. Under Bush, ab-only had become the norm […]