​RESEARCH & POLICY BRIEF

From Cairo’s Tahrir Square to Tehran’s Women, Life, Freedom uprising, women in the Middle East have fought for dignity in the face of violence, surveillance, and repression. This research explores feminism in the region as a politics of survival — where protest, silence, and everyday acts of defiance become strategies for freedom.

Latin America is today both a laboratory of feminist innovation and an epicenter of gender-based violence. With some of the world’s highest femicide rates, the region has also generated one of the most powerful feminist mobilizations of our time: Ni Una Menos (“Not One [Woman] Less”). What began in Argentina in 2015 after the murder of a teenage girl quickly spread across the continent, transforming plazas into classrooms, parliaments, and stages of resistance.

This research situates Ni Una Menos within its regional and global contexts. It traces the structural drivers of violence, documents the movement’s strategies and achievements, and identifies the gaps that remain in law, policy, and culture. Drawing on testimonies, case studies, and comparative analysis, the paper argues that Ni Una Menos represents not just a protest but a paradigm shift: a feminist politics of the streets that redefines democracy, solidarity, and survival in the 21st century.

South Africa faces one of the world’s highest rates of femicide, with a woman killed every three hours. In 2018, women across the country launched #TotalShutdown, declaring that society itself must stop until women are safe. This research explores how the movement reframed gender-based violence as a national emergency and redefined feminism as survival.

Europe often celebrates itself as a model of gender equality — yet at its borders, feminism falters. In France, Muslim women are excluded in the name of secularism; in Germany, migrant caregivers sustain entire households while remaining invisible in law and policy. This research asks: can European feminism be truly universal if it silences the very women it claims to defend?

In Vietnam, where protest is restricted and speech is censored, feminism adapts. Through coded memes, art, and student-led networks, young women transform whispers into resistance. This research explores how “quiet feminism” thrives under constraint — and what it teaches global movements about creativity and survival.

South Korea’s hyperconnected society faces a hidden-camera (molka) crisis that turns daily life into surveillance. Yet through hashtags like #MeToo and #StopMolka, women have transformed fear into collective resistance. This brief examines the paradox of digital feminism — where technology can be both weapon and shield.