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In 2022 Greece became the fifth country in the world to ban harmful interventions and treatments on intersex infants and children. Previously, Malta, Portugal, Germany and Iceland also legally banned harmful interventions on intersex persons. A crucial difference between Greece and the rest of the aforementioned countries is that it is a Christian Orthodox country located in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Drawing from a contextual approach to law, in this comparative analysis the authors will use "contextuality" to explore the meaning behind legal developments that took place in Greece regarding intersex rights and how they could potentially impact the overall situation of intersex rights in the Balkans. In addition, with this paper the authors seek to relocate the dominant focus of intersex rights from Western and Northern Europe with the aim to boost awareness of intersex issues in the Western Balkan region, especially Serbia.

In 2022 Greece became the fifth country in the world to ban harmful interventions and treatments on intersex infants and children. Previously, Malta, Portugal, Germany and Iceland also legally banned harmful interventions on intersex persons. A crucial difference between Greece and the rest of the aforementioned countries is that it is a Christian Orthodox country located in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Drawing from a contextual approach to law, in this comparative analysis the authors will use „contextuality“ to explore the meaning behind legal developments that took place in Greece regarding intersex rights and how they could potentially impact the overall situation of intersex rights in the Balkans. In addition, with this paper the authors seek to relocate the dominant focus of intersex rights from Western and Northern Europe with the aim to boost awareness of intersex issues in the Western Balkan region, especially Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2022, Greece became the fifth country in the world to legally ban Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). The bill was prepared by the Ministry of Health and the intersex-led organisation "Intersex Greece". Even though the organisation was only established in 2021, it was actively engaged in the whole law-making process, which resulted in a legal text that became a best practice worldwide. This article tracks the history of the intersex movement in Greece and shows that the movement emerged around 2009. Then, based on online interviews, blogs, videos and articles, all strategies and alliances used by the movement over the years to advocate for intersex rights are explored, especially in the year 2017 when the law on Legal Gender Recognition (LGR) was passed and in 2022 when IGM was banned. Furthermore, online public documents from the Greek Parliament are consulted to provide a comprehensive analysis of how the social, cultural, economic, and political environment in the country affected these legal developments. Based on the above evidence, this article shows that the law-making process on IGM in Greece started 13 years before the law and was the outcome of a long process of multiple and unique intersecting factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern societies are based on the binary of female and male, excluding whoever falls outside or transgresses the prevailing norms. Even human rights frameworks follow societal, cultural and traditional developments, in limiting the interpretation of "gender" mostly to women and men. Existing dichotomous gender norms influence people's lives significantly and often cause multiple human rights violations and gender-based violence. Intersex women athletes' performance is questioned as they do not fit in the sex/gender binary and they are often forced to undergo medical interventions that violate their basic rights and result in physical and psychological harm and suffering. This renders them "invisible" victims of gender-based violence due to current binary perceptions on gender and the absence of explicit legal frameworks. This article explores international and African legal frameworks on intersex, challenges the current definition of gender and aims to broaden its understanding to cover victims of gender-based violence who fall outside the binary, such as intersex women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the launch of the African Women's Decade (AWD) in 2010, the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), and more recently the adoption of the African Union Agenda 2063 and the global commitment, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its core principle to "leave no one behind", Make Every Woman Count's (MEWC) annual report evaluates the progress, or lack thereof, being made to include and promote the rights of women at the country, regional, and Pan-African levels. MEWC aims to shed light on the situation of women's rights in Africa through the collection of disaggregated data. MEWC has compiled an annual report to track the progress of the AWD commitments since 2011. A presentation of progress and developments for each country on the continent will be made in relation to the AWD benchmarks of women's equality until 2020. In past years, the AWD Report tracked progress on several different issues affecting women. However, for 2017-2018, MEWC focused solely on one area: Women's participation in decision-making processes and leadership to place the spotlight on the situation of women leaders in Africa in all sectors, including women MPs, women ministers, women in the judiciary and women in the private sector. MEWC believes that the collection of data is an important tool that can be used by human rights advocates, academics, national and international organisations, governments, and activists to work for the achievement of gender equality. This article presents the work of MEWC, an emerging digital space for African women's voice, and shares some of the findings of its recent report 'African Women's Decade 2010-2020: Women's participation in decision-making and leadership'. Last, based on the report's outcomes, it explores ways to address the gender inequalities in leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]