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In the evening of June 2^nd I found myself heading to Tahrir Square, in the heart of Cairo, with no interest in protesting. I really just wanted to check out the scene – by this point, I was frustrated by the fact that the Egyptian people were not united. Everyone seemed to be looking out for their own interests, rather than the interests of the country and its people.

Mother of the martyr. I still feel the place where you used to sleep, I still hear your voice rising as you skip up the stairs quickly, "I need to have lunch quickly before I go out again,” I still feel your little fingers on my cheek…

Some people seem to be born with the ability to rouse the passion of crowds with speeches or compel youth to rethink their lives with a poem, but most talents are cultivated over years. Janan Abdu’s multi-faceted talent for advocacy, however, was hatched out of necessity when her husband, Palestinian activist Ameer Makhoul, was arrested and sentenced to nine years in an Israeli jail. 

GENEVA – “Women and girls who are forced to marry find themselves in servile marriages for the rest of their lives,” warned United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, in a statement to commemorate the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, which is celebrated on 2 December. “They are deprived of their genuine right to make their own choice for their future.”