Source: Humanrights.gov — Throughout September, we will be profiling the individual cases of twenty women political prisoners and other prisoners of concern from around the world. Twenty years ago in Beijing, the world set out an ambitious roadmap for empowering women, advancing gender equality, and promoting women and girls’ human rights, as set forth in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at that historic conference. We have selected one woman prisoner for each year that has passed since that vital step forward for women’s rights in 1995, though there are countless more. In naming these women, we are sending a simple message to their governments and others like them: if you want to empower women, stop imprisoning them. And we are also sending a message to twenty prisoners and their families, and to others like them: We have not forgotten about you, and we will continue to highlight other cases of concern going forward.

Isis International calls for the release of Activist School alumni Wang Man and the other detained activists

On March 6th, just two days before International Women's Day, at least 10 feminist activists in China were taken into police custody or put on house arrest on the grounds of "creating disturbance". They had been working on a nationwide campaign against sexual harassment on public transportation and had planned to distribute leaflets and post stickers on public transit vehicles.

Wang Man, an alumni of the Isis International Feminist Activist School, is one the five activists known to still be detained along with Li Tingting, Wei Tingting, Zheng Churan, and Wu Rongrong. There are no "formal charges" against the women and their ongoing detention has lead to growing concerns from the feminist community and human rights groups.