Liesl Gerntholtz
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Liesl Gerntholtz is director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.

Blog Entries by Liesl Gerntholtz

Beyond the Burqa: To Help Women, Leaders Should Dig Deeper than Religious Clothing

Posted July 1, 2009 | 11:54:06 (EST)

President Sarkozy of France has reignited the debate about how Muslim women in Europe should dress by calling for a ban on clothing that, as he puts it, imprisons women and undermines their dignity. But in this burqa debate the voices of Muslim women are strangely absent.

For many men...

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Should Women Fear a Zuma Presidency? Maybe Not

Posted May 28, 2009 | 19:20:08 (EST)

Jacob Zuma was inaugurated as the new president of South Africa on 9 May, with his party, the African National Congress, having achieved a resounding victory in the recent elections. In what has been described as the most competitive election yet to take place in a post-apartheid South Africa, the...

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Upskirting? Down-Putting. And Yes, It Is Abuse

Posted March 5, 2009 | 14:36:00 (EST)

I hadn't heard of upskirting until last week, but apparently it is rife in places as far afield as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and the United States. Wikipedia defines it as a slang term referring to photographing the view up a woman's skirt, including "shots of a...

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