Asia

Find articles here relating to different issues, cultures and people on the continent of Asia, home to 48 countries, or about people of Asian descent around the world.

‘Pink Belt’ Documentary Follows Aparna Rajawat’s Mission to Train Women and Girls in Self-Defense Across India

PUBLISHED 4/17/2026 by

Even as a child, Aparna Rajawat could see how boys in India were more respected, safer and freer than girls.

Wanting a way to defend herself, Rajawat cut her hair short and disguised herself as a boy, attending karate lessons behind her father’s back with the help of her mother and sister. By the time he discovered her secret, she was so good her coach was able to convince her father to let her continue. She went on to become a national champion and compete internationally, all while she was a teenager.

But that’s only the beginning of Rajawat’s story—a story in which her own achievements are only a backdrop to a life-long quest to inspire other Indian women and girls to achieve their dreams and protect themselves in a country where, despite its many advancements, incidents of sexual assault are still rampant and survivors struggle to get justice.

Enter Pink Belt Mission, Rajawat’s nonprofit, through which she works as a motivational speaker as well as training thousands of girls and women in self-defense.

It’s also the subject of a new documentary directed by John McCrite. A remarkable film, Pink Belt starts with Aparna Rajawat’s story, but goes much further, illuminating a path for anyone who cares about human rights to take that first step towards making a difference in their own communities and beyond.

War in the Middle East Is Devastating the Global Aid System, and Women and Girls Are Paying the Price

PUBLISHED 4/13/2026 by and

In the weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran, the conflict has not only generated massive humanitarian need—it has fractured the global aid system itself.

The renewed U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz marks a shift from fragile reopening to active restriction, choking already limited shipping routes and delaying the delivery of food, medicine and fuel.

Even before the blockade, many vessels avoided the strait amid fears of mines and retaliation; now, with access further constrained, the consequences are immediate and far-reaching.

As these disruptions compound, it is women and girls who continue to bear the heaviest burden when humanitarian systems break down.

The closure and continued instability of the Strait of Hormuz have sent shockwaves through global supply chains, driving up oil prices, inflating food costs and straining already underfunded aid operations. These economic shocks reverberate far beyond the region, deepening poverty and food insecurity in places where women already face structural disadvantage.

From rising fertilizer costs that threaten crop yields to surging prices for staple goods, the impacts land hardest on women—who are more likely to live in poverty, eat last in times of scarcity, and rely on fragile aid systems for survival.

As the war’s effects ripple outward, they do not simply linger; they intensify. Environmental damage, displacement and collapsing infrastructure are compounding crises that further erode access to clean water, healthcare and safety. For women and girls, these overlapping shocks mean increased exposure to violence, exploitation and long-term instability.

Without urgent efforts to secure humanitarian access and center the needs of women in response strategies, the consequences of this conflict will continue to deepen inequalities and entrench suffering well beyond the battlefield.

The Curious Case of Afong Moy: Asian Womanhood and National Belonging In the U.S. 

PUBLISHED 4/6/2026 by

The Asian woman in America has long been both overnamed and erased—reduced to stereotypes that obscure her humanity while fixating on her image.

In Afong Moy, a teenage girl exhibited across the U.S. as “The Chinese Lady,” we see how fascination and domination intertwine: her body staged as spectacle, her silence misread as passivity, her personhood collapsed into an object for public consumption.

That same logic shaped the law. From Chy Lung v. Freeman to the Page Act of 1875, Asian women were treated as presumptively immoral, their bodies scrutinized and excluded based on racialized assumptions.

What began as spectacle hardened into policy—ensuring that Asian women’s belonging in America has never been fully granted, only contested.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)

Women’s History Month: Looking Back on How Far We’ve Come and the Hill That Lies Ahead

PUBLISHED 3/6/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Primary season marks few advances for women.
—Donald Trump’s endorsements were overwhelmingly male, and they mattered.
—LA Charter Commission recommends ranked-choice voting.
—German women oppose online hate speech.

… and more.

‘My Heart Breaks for the Survivors’: Hillary Clinton Defends Anti-Trafficking Record, Demands Transparency in Epstein Probe

PUBLISHED 2/26/2026 by

The following statement was delivered by former Secretary of State and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the start of a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee, as part of its ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

In the statement, Clinton tells lawmakers she had no knowledge of Epstein’s or Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal activities and does not recall ever meeting or speaking with Epstein, flying on his planes or visiting any of his properties. She says she has no new information to provide to the committee.

Her testimony is both a denial of involvement and a broader political and policy argument—one that defends her record on combating human trafficking, criticizes the committee’s approach and calls for wider accountability in Epstein-related investigations and anti-trafficking efforts. Clinton characterizes the subpoena as part of a partisan investigation designed to create “political theater” and distract from what she describes as more relevant lines of inquiry, particularly those involving former President Donald Trump and others named in Epstein-related materials.

‘A Deliberate Attempt to Terrorize’: Former FBI Agent Asha Rangappa on What Real Law Enforcement Looks Like—and What ICE Is Not

PUBLISHED 2/17/2026 by

ICE is the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in American history—its budget larger than the FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons combined. Its agents wear masks, drive unmarked vehicles and operate with an impunity that has drawn comparisons to secret police forces around the world. Multiple federal courts have refused to trust the agency’s own statements of fact. And in Minneapolis, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti in front of their neighbors’ cameras.

Asha Rangappa has seen this movie before—just never in America.

A former FBI special agent who spent years in the bureau’s New York division, specializing in counterintelligence, Rangappa was trained to monitor threats to America. Her job required surgical precision, behavioral psychology, extraordinary patience and, above all, trust.

“The bread and butter of your work as a law enforcement agent is that you need the community’s help,” she told me. “You actually can’t do your job without it.”

How the SAVE Act Could Impact Women’s Participation in Democracy

PUBLISHED 2/13/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Republicans’ rebranded SAVE America Act seeks to expand federal oversight of elections and ban ranked-choice voting. Policies that appear neutral on paper can land very differently in lived experience; nearly 90 percent of married women change their last name, which means that the undue burden will fall on women.
—Women candidates win special elections across the country.
—Women gain majority status in Democratic caucuses in state House of Representatives.

… and more.

‘The Moral Property of Women’: Mifepristone, Fibroids and the Stakes of Suppressed Science

PUBLISHED 1/20/2026 by

Despite mifepristone’s broad medical promise, its development has been repeatedly stymied by abortion opponents who fear wider availability would weaken their attempts to suppress abortion access.

More than 26 million women in the U.S. are affected by fibroids, which are noncancerous growths of the uterus that can reach the size of a grapefruit or larger. Treatment too often defaults to invasive surgery, either removing the fibroids or performing hysterectomies.

In China today, a three-month regimen of 10 milligrams of mifepristone per day is the approved protocol for treating fibroids. Meanwhile, American women still do not have access to this very effective nonsurgical treatment.

This is Part 1 of 3 in a new series, “The Moral Property of Women: How Antiabortion Politics Are Withholding Medical Care,” a serialized version of the Winter 2026 print feature article.

Women’s and Girls’ Wrestling Is Ready for Its Modern Era

PUBLISHED 12/26/2025 by and

Women’s and girls’ wrestling has grown considerably in the U.S. since the late ’80s. After the sport’s debut at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, more and more girls began joining high school wrestling teams as more high schools began making teams for girls.

Although the sport carries a long history, women’s wrestling is now more popular than it’s ever been. The sport seeks to create community after being ignored for many years, and will be featured at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It will be in that moment in Los Angeles, under the Olympic flame, that women’s and girls’ wrestling will close the chapter of its trailblazing journey and launch into a modern era.

A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack

PUBLISHED 12/14/2025 by

The feminist telehealth provider Women Help Women is redesigning how abortion pills are packaged to reflect what users actually need: a combination pack that includes one mifepristone tablet and eight misoprostol tablets for use up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“It’s a huge revolution of who actually gets to decide when, how and with the support of whom they can have an abortion and until when,” said Women Help Women coexecutive director Kinga Jelinska. “It centers the needs of users rather than institutions or markets. The underlying notion is that abortion can be friendly, and abortion can be easy.” 

Self-managed abortion is disruptive. We were told that abortion is a difficult decision; that it has to be difficult to access, and that only doctors control it. Self-managed abortion subverts that,” said Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, fellow coexecutive founder.