We are four months into our Upside series, tracking down stories from around the world of problems tackled, trends bucked and hopes renewed. We’ve been overwhelmed by the responses from readers, particularly those of you who have been motivated to get involved – by joining a campaign group, making a donation or even drafting a policy paper.
So this week we thought we would ask: have you been inspired to take action by the series? Let us know what you’ve been up to by emailing us at theupside@theguardian.com, and we might follow up for a future story.
Back to our roundup: this year has been dominated by the global reckoning around gender relations, with #MeToo, the gender pay gap, parental leave and violence towards women all proving major talking points. This week’s stories reflect the evolution of that worldwide upheaval, from maternal mortality in rural India and sexual assault in Mongolia to parental equality in Canada.
The more time that fathers spend caring for their infants, the better it is for the children and for gender equality. But almost everywhere, take-up rates for parental leave among men are abysmal. In Quebec, a bold plan has seen the problem cracked; it has been deemed such a success that it will soon be rolled out nationwide. Mireille Silcoff reports from Montreal on how they did it.
Meanwhile in Mongolia, 31% of women say they have been subjected to sexual or physical violence by a partner, while one in seven says they have experienced sexual violence outside their relationship – twice the estimated world average. Now a high-profile rape allegation against a politician has prompted a fightback among a growing women’s rights movement, as Lily Kuo discovered in Ulaanbaatar.
Parts of rural India have long had a serious problem with women dying in childbirth, with some of the worst mortality rates in the world. A group of Indians living abroad decided something should be done to empower women. The Save a Mother initiative has had remarkable success, and Amrit Dhillon visited the village of Purabgaon in northern India to find out more.
What we liked:
This Wired story looks at Los Angeles’s “aqueous awakening” as the city finds new ways to source, store and use water.
What we heard:
Such a breath of fresh air! In Australia, dads get two weeks off work, but really, it’s not enough. Five weeks would allow time for fathers to bond with the baby and support the mum, who is recovering from the equivalent of a major operation/health event, as well as waking up every two hours all night long to breastfeed, so is extremely sleep deprived.
Commenter bonobo123 writing below the line about Quebec’s parental leave policy
Where was the upside?
In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation and one of the world’s biggest marine polluters, the government has joined forces with the country’s two largest Islamic organisations to encourage consumers to reduce plastic waste and reuse plastic bags.
