Can promises on gender equality made in Australia help a 16-year-old cigarette maker with no toilet in India?

In this week’s newsletter: can the Melbourne declaration help women affected by injustice?; plus the artist chronicling the DRC’s blood-soaked history in embroidery

I first spoke to Shazia Khanum for a report on informal jobs. The 16-year-old’s fingers moved swiftly as she talked, rolling bidis – tendu leaves tied around tobacco. She rolls about 300-500 of the cigarettes daily, earning about £1. In the cramped workshop in Karnataka’s Yarab Nagar, India, where she works, there are no toilets or sanitary facilities. Asked how she manages her period, Khanum pointed to a makeshift curtained space where she changes and reuses cloth rags.

Stitches in time: the artist chronicling the DRC’s blood-soaked history in tapestry

‘Mothers won’t die, babies can survive’: new maternal hospital opens in world’s largest refugee camp

‘It’s like a slow death’: a jailed mother and her daughter on why prison is a sentence for them both

An exhibition of 100 Palestinian tatreez embroideries created to document the genocide in Gaza will be on display at the Venice Biennale from 9 May to 22 November. Each work, made by women in refugee camps and villages in Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank, shows a scene of destruction from Israel’s assault on Gaza. Gaza – No Words – See The Exhibit is presented by the Palestine Museum US at the Palazzo Mora.

Musicians, activists, film-makers and scientists will join novelists and editors at Nairobi Litfest 2026 (8-10 May) in the Kenyan capital, while its sister, Hay festival, takes place in Powys, Wales, from 21 to 31 May.

Dominican artist Hulda Guzmán’s most extensive solo exhibition to date opens on 23 May at Turner Contemporary in the UK coastal town of Margate. Shaped by the mountains of Samaná in the Dominican Republic, where she lives, Guzmán’s vibrant and dreamlike style challenges western landscape traditions.

Three writers, Natasha Walter (Living Dolls: the Return of Sexism, Feminism for a World on Fire), Shahed Ezaydi (The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women) and NS Nuseibeh (Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman) will be discussing Feminism for a World on Fire at the Brighton festival on England’s south coast on 21 May.

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