In-depth

In Morocco, abortion is still criminalized under the penal code, pushing large numbers of women and girls to resort to unsafe methods of pregnancy termination. Many suffer severe health complications, sometimes even death. Despite hundreds of clandestine abortions occurring daily, the legal situation remains unchanged. Human rights organizations continue to call for decriminalization and for guaranteeing women’s right to terminate pregnancies safely and under proper health conditions, without fear of prosecution or arrest.

It was not until 2010 that Spain adopted a legal framework authorizing abortion for women up to 14 weeks and 22 weeks in cases of fetal anomaly. Despite this, numerous obstacles remain, such as conscientious objection by healthcare professionals. Some women, such as migrant women, also have difficulty accessing this right. It’s a topic at the heart of current affairs in the country.

Policing, exploitation, and the push for abolition leave migrant sex workers in Spain without protection or recognition.

Every year on September 26, the world marks World Contraception Day. Yet many girls and women still lack access to their chosen and adequate method of contraception—not only on this day, but throughout the year. In Serbia, contraceptive methods are generally available, but limited finances and the absence of reliable information make consistent and reliable contraception inaccessible for many women.

Women have always been a powerful force of resistance against Italian organized crime. Those who dared to defy the godfathers paid with their lives for denouncing the violence they suffered, demonstrating that it is possible to overturn the ruthless code of revenge and omertà to obtain truth and justice. In this final article of a three-piece series dedicated to the role of women in the Italian mafias, we recount several stories of rebels, a way of paying tribute to all those who challenged the mafia order.

In Türkiye, abortion is legal but increasingly out of reach. Amid rising conservatism and pronatalist policies, women’s bodies have become a political battleground, caught between state-backed family ideals and the struggle for reproductive autonomy.

The Israeli war on Gaza has expanded from killing bodies to killing frozen embryos—still mere clusters of cells preserved in nitrogen tanks. Israel did not only end their potential lives; it also closed the last windows of hope for countless families who clung to the dream of one day having a child.

Egyptian women continue to suffer from forced childbirth in a society that perpetuates the idea of reproduction as a purely female responsibility, constrained by legal, cultural, and media structures that restrict their right to bodily autonomy. Against rigid traditional values, community initiatives are striving to empower women and engage men as responsible partners to alleviate health and social burdens and foster new forms of awareness.

Every year in Italy, around 63,000 women terminate their pregnancies, embarking on a long and painful process in which humiliation, judgment, and violence are all too common. The conscientious objection of healthcare workers forces many to undertake expensive travel or resort to clandestine procedures, while ultraconservative Catholic groups, present in gynecology departments and clinics, try by every possible means to dissuade those who have decided to have an abortion.

Main image: Divorce is a topic that is often discussed in Egyptian films. Here, I Want a Solution by Samir Mazhar, 1975.Mona Mahmoud, 26, never imagined that she’d be left alone during the most vulnerable time of her life. Her husband divorced her in absentia when she was six months pregnant, leaving her to face childbirth without support. Her fear intensified as the time for the baby’s arrival approached, and when she underwent a cesarean section, her concern wasn’t so much the pain as the fate of her child. Would he be legally recognized? Or would he be denied a birth certificate proving his existence?In a society that ties birth...