great funds on a daily basis in more than a 100 countries, financing projects in various sectors ranging from infrastructure to health and education. these initiatives name to contribute their reputation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable develop. the, you're watching the w news asia coming up today across afghanistan, the closure of more female run businesses. this time targeting beauty salon. we take a closer look at the impact plus japanese women are not encouraged to study and pursue careers in the sciences. what that means for one of the most advanced economies in the world, the

. my name is melissa chan. thanks for joining us. in afghanistan, the taliban has made a yet another move against women. this time of forcing the closure of beauty salons across the country. a decision led by the ministry for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, which appears to be accumulating, growing influence in the government. salons in the shower, you know, district of cobbler pod lot show us. the taliban has found women from public spaces like parks fairs and jims, bard girls and women from high schools and universities, and order them to cover up and public. now the time about his taking a but beauty potter's peasy cell on surfaces are forbidden by his land, the top to bottom says, and calls economic hardship for the families of grooms during wedding festivities. but beauty salons are one of the few areas where female entrepreneurs can offer

he's on the bottom, you put tens of thousands of women out of work. i asked the telephone not to bother women, especially those who have suffered a lot in order to stand on their own feet. please look, the women work, the name, women are out of society. the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention advice, and that's the 4th closures in june, giving a one month deadline for cellphones to wind down their businesses. the announcement, glad to wear public protests, mutations and makeup artist took to the streets of capital and security forces responded with fire hoses and teasers shooting their guns in the air to scatter the angry women. added to showing the situation continues like this. and then the women and that's gonna stand, would have no future condition. they wouldn't be forced to marry at the age of 13 or 14 by power would be cut off on a people would live with sheep some code. and we would regress not to 20 years.

back, so let me go to 60 to 70 years back, but i suppose the page letting me go to the beauty salons were one of the few remaining places for women to gather away from home, as well as cutting off one of the last revenue streams available to by means the end of a valued safe space for afghanistan's women and girls. japan is one of the world's leading economies, but when it comes to women in science, their representation is very low. among advanced countries, it has the lowest rate of female researchers and science technology, engineering and mathematics, otherwise known as stem. at only 16.6 percent women at technical education institutions and engineering schools faced up till battles only to deal with more challenges once they enter the workforce. do not go to as soon as a raid women in japan as an engineering student and talk to institute of technology

. she is one among a very small pool of women. she got the science book early on, wanting to do something useful. what she found herself in the texting environment, mostly surrounded by men, like the women in this university come prepared, the knowing that there are lots of men here and we'll fix it, is not going to fix it. but the number of women who is given up is not small enough that i'd say that so know that many women in japan drop out due to lack of structure and support. several others dissuaded by social stigma so much so, but only 16 percent of university of them in big fields like engineering, placing japan at the bottom rank among the building nations. the government wants to fix that. heating bad cold couples institute is wanting to, doesn't that, that are about to introduce women. scroll down for the i think it's

a good sort of thing if it can reduce the numbers of women who quit because they don't like an environment where the only men come up on stopping spring of 2020 full took you institute of technology once at least 20 to 30 percent of new stem students to be women. the number country stalls at 13 percent. so they'll say, well the good you, there is a still a strong unconscious bias in japan. the movement not not suited for the size or that they do not need to go through you was the quite right. i think this is the reason why women are the sink is in this dam. you'll have enough to be seen, i think. and so we are taking front of a step so that the woman who was a strongly appealing to the 31 email the students had to come to the university. that's the hosting that the some japanese companies to are trying to make the work environment motor attractive to women. next, i'm mitsubishi,

heavy is offering scholarships with the target, the doubling the number of women engineers in the company. hello, and the whole know where to continue. cool. gosh, depends but people, pollution is declining, more and more obviously the source bit about faith calling and the population aging period. this is a very important issue that the following up to 70 percent of the leverage of the godless affair, the man, what a woman, what he must know, the because of the 3 believe that the promotion of diversity is a very important issue for our companies contractor in most experts born that a lack of diversity in the lack of women is not a small problem for japan. it is about the reforming that could hold it back from leading and innovation and being a field global competitor. and to dig deeper into this story, my colleague, they rush banner g, spoke to elizabeth oda of women in science. japan is old up one of the challenges women working in stem subjects face in japan as well. thank you for the question.

and for us to us, thank you for having me here. um yes. so there are several challenges that women pursuing prisons don't chase and japan. um. one of the 1st and foremost starts quite young, which is negative stereotypes about women and girls who want to pursue careers and some but even those that try to pursue and continue face negative stereotypes and university within their careers. those that are able to make it too early a mistress age when they're considering starting a family phase issues when taking maternity leave and attempting to return to the workforce. there are marietta issues and a lot of them stand from a concern, i guess about women and their role not just in the workplace, but as mothers and his caregivers. and over i would say, maybe

a very large burden of domestic work. we're talking about japan here. one of the most advanced economy or economy is in the well, yet we talk about japanese society. it almost seems regressive when it comes to women. would that be a correct characterization? oh, yes. so in japan has been raised quite low in terms of gender equality, and in fact, this year they plummeted even lower in the rankings. so i think regressive is a shared term lease relative to maybe western standards of what it means to, you know, have gender rights and gender equality. yes. in 2018, for instance, an investigation revealed that medical schools of uh, many polluting exam results to keep women out has what is the impact of those revelations being have, are things improved because there's brought to the full the discrimination that women face to yeah, that's

a great question and so talk your medical university was one of the institutions among i think 9 others that was found to be systematically excluding a single candidates from applying out of the fear that when they actually made it into the workforce, they would take long maternity leave or that there were leaves due to marriage responsibilities. of course, of course this is unfair to those women for trying to build careers. and um yeah, i think the follow up from that has been that women, you know, are feeling very discouraged. not just the women that we're applying for that and were rejected. but women were broadway and young girls are starting to see that, oh wow. there actually are systems in place that are attempting to exclude us from participating. and unfortunately, those institutions really doesn't suffer that much, or just really face any major consequences. so are, are things improving? um yeah, so there recently we're announcing policy changes to attempt to have quotas for

female students that some university is, in my opinion, is that this is a step in the right direction, but it is not comfrey, comprehensive enough to really address the broader kind of societal view of women and stuff, and those concerns around marriage and, and family care. just on the point of growth as i understand that it's something that the individual universities that they think is an initiative and promoting that in that only institutes of learning. do you think that this is something that the government should get behind as well? yeah, that's a good question. and i think there are some parallels to which kind of is trying to do and what the united states has recently been dealing with in terms of affirmative action and over turning affirmative action. and i do think that the government should be playing a stronger role in enforcing general quality at academic institutions here in japan . um, whether or not as a quote or educating, you know,

kind of ensuring that there's greater education about diversity, not just for women, but the efforts across other under represented groups of these institutions and greater protections for women and other gender minorities that come forward with issues well, there are these institutions and i'm not very optimistic, but that will happen soon when given the fact that fewer than 15 percent of legislators in japan are law makers and japan are women. and so it's hard to get that kind of representation in institutions. but our lawmakers are also under represented, which begs the question, how seriously is the government taking this issue of the issue? a few old women in style fields and women across the board generally in senior leadership positions or essentially in positions of black. yeah, i would like to that's a very good question. i would like to take the government up there at the world that they are taking this issue seriously enough to target. so they're studying for

years 20252027. and beyond that are things that they're actually striving to achieve, but unfortunately, and we've seen that they fall short of this quote, is pretty regularly over the past decade and more so. so yeah, i think it's going to take some serious effort, some serious self reflection for further into the actual change. and i think it also involves having notches women leaders, but women that are actually capable of making decisions and not just women that are put as in these positions just for optics. we leave it there for the time being, but thank you so much for joining us. today because it is a bit though, the thank you very much for having me, and that's it for today we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of dw means agent leaving now with pictures of a national cliff calligraphy contests in japan. spectacular shows of the arch form on a massive scale. thanks for watching and goodbye. the

russia charm offensive. freaking leaders gather in st. petersburg for russia, africa. summit, mental strength and business ties. also on the show. well bumped the road ahead. first, size and size of steak and a chinese car maker and a bit to boost sales. and india takes the gross crown from china. so i left says it will be the fastest growing major economy for the foreseeable future. this is dw

business i'm of the vina. welcome to the show. russia is hosting 17 african leaders at a russia africa summit in saint petersburg. it's a sign moscow once the strength and if that could only ties with a confidence, according to russia, its trade with african countries last year go to nearly $18000000000.00. its main partners are all julia egypt, olivia and go lot nigeria. and so done. rough as the biggest export to africa or weapons, they count for 44 percent of exports and don't come with human rights strings attached. moscow is also an important food supplier, especially in green and exchange. it gains access to african raw materials and strategic entry like port bases in libya. and so done. all that you can draw up as a senior lecture and politics and international relations and leads beckett's university. i asked him, what african nations hope to gain.