Press Association Health secretary Andrew Lansley has instructed Department of Health officials to investigate the abortion allegations. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters An investigation into claims that some doctors are granting women illegal abortions based on the sex of their unborn baby has been launched by the Department of Health. It has been sparked by an...
Kate Green, shadow equalities minister Women’s refuges face a funding cut of 31%. Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian Last week, the government, led by the equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, described violence against young women and girls as “shocking”. Yet there are still worrying reports that the only refuge for teenage girls fleeing violence...
Emine Saner ‘If you can talk to somebody about the most intimate part of their lives, it opens you up to have a conversation about all sorts of things,’ says Cosmopolitan editor Court. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian The covers of previous issues, enlarged and stacked up in the offices of Cosmopolitan, show...
Daniel Boffey and Lucy Rock Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, says childcare is an early priority for Labour as it formulates policies for the next general election. Photograph: Felix Clay Labour is to put childcare at the centre of its next manifesto and is examining models in Norway and Denmark, where the state...
Lizzy Davies Fawzia Koofi was elected as an MP in 2005 and became the Afghan parliament’s first female deputy speaker. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian The questions came thick and fast but the woman sitting on the podium in a pink headscarf and high heels took them all in her stride. The Taliban,...
Caroline Kelly To die for … 8 Women. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/USA FILMS Ten years ago this month, a film came out in France that changed perceptions of women in cinema for good. Following a high-profile billboard campaign, by the time François Ozon’s 8 Femmes was first screened in early 2002, excitement among French cinema-goers had...
Editorial Mr Cameron was in Stockholm last week to discuss with the Nordic countries, among other issues, why women are largely absent from British boardrooms and how more females can be encouraged to become entrepreneurs and leaders in business. “It’s about quality,” Mr Cameron said. “Not just equality… if we fail to unlock the...
Mark Townsend Female prisoners at Styal women’s prison in Cheshire, where six inmates killed themselves in one year. Photograph: Manchester Evening News Syndication Clive Chatterton is still haunted by the sights and sounds he remembers from his time as governor of Styal, one of 13 women’s jails in England and Wales. There was the...
