Freedom is coming: How Iraq’s Saddam Hussein neighbour Zainab survived violence to build women’s most powerful tool in the world
In 1991, at age 19, Zainab escaped Iraq through an arranged marriage to an older Iraqi man living in the United States. Her family saw it as salvation – a way out before the Gulf War made leaving impossible. Zainab thought it was freedom. She was wrong. The marriage that saved her from Saddam’s Iraq became its own prison. Her husband was controlling, isolating and abusive. She’d escaped one authoritarian regime only to land in another – this one domestic, private, and just as suffocating.
In Mauritania’s ‘divorce market’ marriage split is pursued by wives and celebrated with ‘divorce party’
Despite these concerns, Mauritania’s “divorce market” stands out as a powerful example of how cultural practices can redefine social norms and empower individuals, particularly women, in ways that defy conventional expectations.
WHO data show more women die giving birth in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world
The prospects of more health resources have dwindled in the region. US foreign aid data shows that Nigeria received almost $4 billion in aid from the now-dismantled US Agency for International Development between 2020 and 2025, with $423 million going to maternal health and family planning.
