In-depth

Across Europe, the surrogacy industry is made up of an extensive network of mediation agencies, law firms, fertility clinics, and surrogacy centers operating in close coordination. This three-part series focus on Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece. Behind the legal façade of the surrogacy network, there lies a system thriving on inequality and blurred ethics. Follow the rest of the series for further reading on the research conducted in Spain.

Across Europe, the surrogacy industry is made up of an extensive network of mediation agencies, law firms, fertility clinics, and surrogacy centers operating in close coordination. This three-part article series focuses on the terrible abuses in the market. Follow the rest of the series for further reading on the cases of Greece and Spain.

Undoubtedly, Mediterranean women artists—those who venture further than most—have raised new questions, provoked ruptures, and expanded the horizons of what’s possible. This feature sheds light on the bold, boundary-pushing approaches of some of them.

The Sletate project offers innovative accessories inspired by women’s bodies and reproductive organs, combining art with health and sexual awareness and contributing to building broad feminist solidarity.

In the 2000s, two women photographers, Meriem Bouderbala and Hela Ammar, challenged long-held beliefs and introduced a new perspective on the female body and how it is represented. Both from Tunis, their works now circulate around the world.

At the Museo di Roma, in the Palazzo Braschi, an exhibition dedicated to women artists who lived and worked in the Eternal City between the 16th and 19th centuries concluded at the end of May. After centuries of historiographical silence, this exhibition reconstructs the creative and biographical trajectories of 56 of these women, who until now had been forgotten or invisible in a field traditionally dominated by men.

Every year, thousands of female seasonal agricultural workers from Morocco travel to Spain—to the fields of the city of Huelva, in the country’s southwest—for the strawberry and red fruit harvest season. The stories of these migrant workers are often rife with abuse and harsh working conditions, but in the shadows, others work to empower them and provide them with an economic alternative upon their return to Morocco.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2023, thousands of mothers and pregnant women have faced dire humanitarian conditions amid a near-total lack of medical, health, and nutritional support, leaving them and their children starving.

How have Muslim women been portrayed in Greece over time? Tracing their depiction from the poetic verses of Nikos Kavvadias’ Kasbah to the iconic song Misirlou, and through to a more contemporary portrayal in the TV series TAMAM, this article emphasizes the complexities of gender, culture, and identity in the Greek popular imagination through these different cultural mediums.

The creation of botanical gardens in semi-public spaces, such as residential buildings, has long been a losing battle in Tunis, hindered by residents’ struggles to agree on even the most basic principles of communal living. Yet, thanks to the unwavering determination and strong character of Faiza Majri, what once seemed an unattainable dream has become a reality. Today, the entrance of her building has been transformed into a thriving green oasis, all sparked by a single bold initiative—the planting of one citrus tree.