麻豆社

Indian women's rights, being a babysitter for the LRA in Uganda, broadcasting across Syria's war zones and Cornish pasties in Mexico. Pascale Harter presents tales of the unexpected from around the world.

In Delhi, Zeinab Badawi's prompted to wonder why - in a country with a huge cohort of respected working women, rising rates of urbanisation and education, and a firm legal foundation for women's rights - there are still so many customs blighting women's potential. Marriage and childbirth, she hears, can be particular flashpoints - and while career women in the city can fight for their own interests, it's often a different story in rural and poorer areas.

Sally Hayden was recently in northern Uganda to hear how people who survived being attacked (and in some cases abducted and forcibly recruited) by the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony are trying to rebuild their lives and communities. But the story of one young man, who was taken as a child and then spent his captivity as a babysitter for an LRA commander, illustrates how hard that can be.

Emma Jane Kirby makes contact again with the staff of Radio Alwan - a pioneering broadcaster which tries to supply entertainment and debate, as well as hard news bulletins, to all sides of the Syrian civil war. It used to be a hive of activity, but now its funding is threatened and its innovative programmes may fall silent.

And John Kampfner traces the currents of migration, mining and war which led to the Cornish pasty - a traditional delicacy of southwestern Britain - becoming a regional treat in central Mexico. As it turns out, the Kampfner family name, and line, have spread far from their roots in Germany to span several continents - and now their members are beginning to rediscover each other.

Photo: An Indian mother holds the hand of her new born infant at maternity ward of a government hospital in Agartala, the capital of northeastern state of Tripura on May 13, 2018. (Photo by Arindam DEY / AFP/Getty Images)