For persecuted Christian women, violence is compounded by ‘shaming’

Women to women conference in Ethiopia, February 2018.
It would be hard to argue the world is unaware that Islamic State fighters used rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war against Iraq’s Yazidi women: Nadia Murad shared the 2018 Nobel Prize after she told the world of her personal ordeal at their hands. However, testimonies from . . . Read More

From China to sub-Saharan Africa, Christians experience high levels of persecution in 73 countries

From China to sub-Saharan Africa, Christians experience high levels of persecution in 73 countries
In its latest annual survey of 150 countries monitoring how difficult it is to live as a Christian, out today, the overall trend in the 2019 World Watch List is that almost half (73) showed extreme, very high or high levels of persecution. A year earlier, it was 58 countries. . . . Read More

UK parliamentary group calls out 27 countries for ‘significant’ religious freedom violations

A church in Bartella, a town near the Iraqi city of Mosul, after Islamic State militants left the area in October 2016. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
A “Commentary on the Current State of Freedom of Religion or Belief” presented by a group of British parliamentarians today, 10 December, highlights 27 countries where people’s religious freedom has been denied and abused in the past year. The report, presented by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International . . . Read More

70 years since universal declaration, human rights ‘ignored and abused all over the world’

Ahok protests
Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Monday, 10 December, rights group ADF International has called for “recommitment” to the founding principles, which it says are being “consistently ignored and abused … all over the world”. Chief among those rights, ADF notes, is the . . . Read More

Persecution of minority Christian women ‘hidden, complex, and interwoven with “everyday” discrimination’

Women's suffering because of their faith is often in daily life. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
Five new reports – about Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Colombia and the Central African Republic – unmask the multiple domestic, societal and state dynamics used in the persecution of Christian women and girls in each country. When viewed individually, the tactics used against women – from subtle discrimination surrounding access to . . . Read More

‘I am currently under threat of death for preaching’ – Colombian pastor

During the 50 years conflict between Colombia's government and main rebel group, FARC-EP, churches were threatened and hundreds of church leaders assassinated by armed groups. (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2012)
Violence in Colombia has killed 200,000 people and caused around 7 million to flee their homes over the past 50 years, making them the world’s largest internally displaced group of people, World Magazine reported last week. Violence is especially severe in rural areas. At the border with Venezuela, the magazine . . . Read More

Report: Latin American states failing Christians by overlooking ‘criminal freedom’

During the 50 years conflict between Colombia's government and main rebel group, FARC-EP, churches were threatened and hundreds of church leaders assassinated by armed groups. (Photo: World Watch Monitor, 2012)
A new report looking into the “endemic phenomena” of organised crime and corruption in Latin America highlights the failure of governments to protect active Christians from violence. The inability or unwillingness of Latin American governments to stop organised crime encourages a “criminal freedom” that “makes specific sectors within society become . . . Read More